or distaste that which they feed upon Or because that like as they who boile sea water rid it from that salt brackish and biting qualitie that it hath so in those that are hot by nature the salt savour is dulled and mortified by heat Or rather for that a savour or smacke according as Plato saith is a water or juice passing thorow the stem or stalke of a plant but we see that the sea water rūning as thorow a streiner loseth the saltnesse being the terrestriall and grossest part that is in it And hereupon it is that when as men digge along by the sea side they meet with springs of fresh and potable water And many there be who draw out of the very sea fresh water and good to be drunke namely when it hath 〈◊〉 thorow certeine vessels of wax by reason that the terrestriall and saltish parts thereof be streined out In one word cley or marle also yea and the carrying of sea water in long conduct pipes causeth the same when it is so streined to be potable for that there are kept still in them the terrestriall parts and are not suffered to passe thorow Which being so very probable it is that plants neither receive from without forth any salt savour nor if haply any such qualitie breed in them doe they transfuse the same into their fruits for that the conducts of their pores being very small and streight there can not be transmitted thorow them any grosse or terrestriall substance Or els we must say that saltnesse is in some sort a kinde of bitternesse according as Homer signifieth in these verses Bitter salt-water at mouth he cast againe And all therewith his head did drop amaine And Plato affirmeth that both the one and the other savour is abstersive and liquefactive but the saltish lesse of the twaine as that which is not rough and so it will seeme that bitter differeth from salt in excesse of drinesse for that the salt savour is also a great drier 6 What is the cause that if folke use ordinarily and continually to goe among yong trees or shrubs full of deaw those parts of their bodies which do touch the twigs of the said plants are wont to have a scurfe or mange rise upon their skin IS it as Laet us saith for that the deaw by the subtiltie thereof doth fret and pierce the skin Or rather because like as the blast and mil-deaw is incident to those 〈◊〉 or plants that take wet and be drenched even so when the smoothe and tender superficiall parts of the skinne be fretted scarified and dissolved a little with the deaw there ariseth a certeine humour and filleth the fretted place with a smart and angry scurfe for lighting upon those parts which have but little bloud such as be the smalles of the legs and the feet it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the superficies of them Now that there is in deaw a certeine inordinate qualitie it appeareth by this that it maketh those who are grosse and corpulent to be leaner and more spare of bodie witnesse our women who are given to be fat and would be fine who gather deaw with linnen clothes or els with locks or fleeces of wooll thinking therewith to take downe and spend their fogginesse and make themselves more gant and slender 7 What is the cause that barges and other vessels in Winter time go more slowly upon the rivers than at other seasons but they do not so upon the sea WHat say you to this May it not be for that the aire of rivers being alwaies grosse and heavy in Winter is more inspissate by reason of the circumstant cold and so is an hindrance to the course of ships Or haply this accident is to be imputed to the water of rivers rather than to the aire about them for colde driving in and restraining the water maketh it more heavy and grosse as we may perceive in water houre-glasses for the water runneth out of them more leasurely and slowly in winter then in summer And Theophrastus writeth that in Thracia neere unto the mount called Pangaeon there is a fountaine the water whereof is twice as much heavie in winter than it is in summer waigh it in one the same vessell full That the thicknesse of water maketh a vessell to passe more sluggishly it may appeare by this that the barges of the river carry greater fraights by farre in winter than in summer because the water being thicke is stronger and able to beare more As for the sea water it cannot be made more thicke in winter by reason of the owne heat which is the cause that it congealeth not and if it gather any thickening it seemeth to be very slender and little 8 What is the reason that we observe all other waters if they be mooved and troubled are the colder but the sea the more surging and waving the hotter it is IS it because if there be any heat in other waters the same is a stranger unto it and comming from without and so the motion and agitation thereof doth dissipate and drive the same forth againe but that heat of the sea which is proper and naturall to it the windes doe stirre up and augment That the sea is naturally hot may evidently be proved by this that it is so transparent and shining as also for that it is not ordinarily frozen heavy though it be and terrestriall 9 What should be the cause that in winter the sea water is lesse bitter and brackish in taste FOr so by report writeth Dionysus the great convaier of conduicts who in a treatise of that argument saith that the bitternesse of the sea water is not without some sweetnesse seeing that the sea receiveth so many and so great rivers for admit that the sunne doe draw up that which is fresh and potable out of it because it is light and subtill that is but from the upper part onely and withall it doth more in Summer than in any other season by reason that in Winter his beames are not so strong to strike for that his heat likewise is but saint and feeble and so a good portion of the sweetnesse remaining behinde doth delay that excessive bitternesse and brackishnesse like a medicine that it hath And the same befalleth unto river waters and all other that be potable for even such in Summer time become worse and more offensive to the raste than in Winter by how much the heat of the sunne doth resolve and dissipate the light and sweet parts thereof but in Winter it runneth alwaies new and fresh whereof the sea cannot chuse but have a good part as well because it is evermore in motion as also for that the rivers running into it be great and impart their fresh water unto it 10 What is the reason that men are wont to powre sea water into their wine vessels among the wine And the common report goeth that there were sometime certeine mariners and fisher-men who brought with them
others be most rash audacious and bolde shewing thereby their shamelesse impudencie which is no good nor true argument of courage and fortitude As for a pretie scoffe pleasantly delivered and in mirth without any wrong meant or touch of credit if a man know how to take it well and be not moved thereby to choler and displeasure but laugh it out it doth argue no base minde nor want of wit and understanding but is a liberall and gentelman-like qualitie savouring much of the ingenuous maner of the Lacedaemonians But to heare a sharpe checke that toucheth the very quicke and a reprehension to reforme maners delivered in cutting and tart words much like unto an egar and biting medicine and therwith not to be cast downe and shrinke together for feare nor to run all into a sweat or be ready to 〈◊〉 and stagger with a dizinesse in the head for very shame that hath set the heart on fire but to seeme inflexible and nothing thereat moved smiling in some sort and drily scoffing after a dissembling maner is a notable signe of a most dissolute and illiberall nature past all grace and that basheth for nothing being so long wonted and inured to euill doing in such sort as the heart and conscience is hardened and overgrowen with a certaine brawne and thicke skinne which will not receive the marke or wale of any lash be it never so smart And as there be many such so you shall meet with other youthes of another nature meere contrary unto them who if they happen but once to be checked and to heare ill are soone gone and will not turne againe but quit the Philosophie schooles for ever These being endued by nature with the good rudiments and beginnings of vertue tending unto felicity another day to wit Shamefastnesse and Abashment loose the benefit thereof in that by reason of their overmuch delicacy and effaeminate minds they can not abide reproofs nor with generositie endure correctious but turne away their itching eares to heare rather the pleasant and smooth tales of some flatterers or sophisters which yeeld them no fruit nor profit at all in the end For as hee who after incision made or the fear of dismembring performed by the Chyrurgian runneth away from him and will not tary to have his wound bound up or seared sustaineth all the paine of the cure but misseth the good that might ensue thereof even so he who unto that speech of the Philosopher which hath wounded and launced his follie and untowardnesse will not give leasure to heale the same up and bring it to a perfect confirmed skin againe goeth his waies with the painfull bit and dolorous sting but wanteth all the helpe and benefit of Philosophie For not onely the hurt that Telephus received as Euripides saith By skales of rust both ease and remedie found Fil'd from the speare that first didmake the wound but also the pricke inflicted upon a towardly yoong man by Philosophie is healed by the same words that did the hurt And therefore when hee findeth himselfe checked and blamed feele he must and suffer some smart abide I say he ought to be bitten but not to be crushed and confounded therewith not to be discouraged and dismaide for ever Thus he is to thinke of himselfe being now inducted in Philosophie as if he were a novice newly instituted and prosessed in some religious orders and sacred mysteries namely that after he hath patiently endured a while the first expiatorie purifications and troubles he may hope at the end thereof to see and finde some sweete and goodly fruit of consolation after this present disquietnesse and agonie Say also that he were wrongfully and without cause thus snubbed and rebuked by the Philosopher yet he shall do well to have patience and sit out the end And after the speech finished he may addresse an Apologie unto him and justifie himselfe praying him to reserve this libertie of speech and vehemency of reproofe which he now used for to represse and redresse some other fault which he shall indeed have committed Moreover like as in Grammar the learning to spel letters and to reade in Musicke also to play upon the Lute or Harpe yea and in bodily exercise the feat of wrestling and other activities at the beginning be painefull cumbersome and exceeding hard but after that one be well entred and have made some progresse therein by little and little continuall use and custome much after the manner of conversing and acquaintance among men maketh maistrie engendreth further knowledge and then everie thing that was stronge and difficult before prooveth familiar and easie ynough both to say and doe Even so it fareth in Philosophie whereat the first there seemeth no doubt to be some strangenesse obscuritie and I wot not what barrennesse aswell in the termes and words as in the matters therein contained Howbeit for all that a yoong man must not for want of heart be astonied at the first entrance into it nor yet for faintnesse be discouraged and give over but make proofe and triall of every thing persevere and continue in diligence desirous ever to passe on still and proceed further and as it were to draw well before waiting and attending the time which may make the knowledge thereof familiar by use and custome the onely meanes which causeth everie thing that is of it selfe good and honest to be also sweete and pleasant in the ende And verily this familiaritie will come on apace bringing with it a great cleernesse and light of learning it doth ingenerate also an ardent love and affection to vertue without which love a man were most wretched or timorous if he should apply himselfe to follow another course of life having once given over for want of heart the studie of Philosophie But peradventure it may fall out so that young men not well experienced may find at the beginning such difficulties in some matters that hardly or unneth at all they shall be able to comprehend them Howbeit they are themselves partly the cause that they doe incurre this obscuritie and ignorance who being of divers and contrarie natures yet fall into one and the selfesame inconvenience For some upon a certaine respectuous reverence which they bare unto their Reader and Doctour or because they would seeme to spare him are afraid to aske questions and to be confirmed and resolved in doubts arising from the doctrine which he delivereth and so give signes by nodding their heads that they approove all as if they understood everie thing verie well Others againe by reason of a certaine importune ambition and vaine emulation of others for to shew the quicknesse and promptitude of their wit and their readie capacitie giving out that they fully understand that which they never conceived by that meanes attaine to nothing And thus it commeth to passe that those bashfull ones who for modestie and shamefastnes are silent and dare not aske that whereof they are ignorant after they be departed out of
theirs what would they doe and say then quoth he if I should deale hardly by them and doe them shrewd turnes Semblably notable and excellent was the carriage of Pisistratus to Thrasibulus of king Porsenna to Mutius and of Magas to Philemon who in a publike and frequent Theatre had mocked and scoffed at him in this maner Magas there are some letters come unto you from a king But letter Magas none can reade nor write for any thing Now it chanced afterwards that by a tempest at sea he was cast upon the Port-towno Paraetonium whereof Magas was governor and so fell into his hands who did him no other harme but commaunded one of his guard or officers about him onely with his naked sword to touch his bare necke and so gently to goe his waies and do no more to him marie afterwards he sent unto him little bones for cock-all and a pretie ball to play withall as if he had beene a child that had no wit nor discretion and so sent him home againe in peace King Ptolomaus upon a time gesting and scoffing at a simple and unlearned Gramarian asked him who was the father of Peleus I will answere you sir quoth he if you tell me first who was the father of Lagus This was a drie flout and touched King Ptolomaus very neere in regard of the meane parentage from whence he was descended whereat all about the King were mightily offended and thought it was too broad a jest and frump intolerable But Ptolomaeus if it be not seemely for a King to take and put up a scorne surely as little decent it is for his person to give a scorne Alexander the Great was more bitter and cruell than otherwise his ordinatie manner was to others towards Callisthenes and Clytus But King Porus being taken prisoner by him in a battell besought that he would use him royally or like a King And when King Alexander demaunded moreover what he had more to say and what he would have else No more quoth he for under this word Royally is comprised all And therefore I suppose it is that the Greeks call the King of the gods by the name of Milichiüs that is to say Milde and sweete as honie And the Athenians named him Mumactes which is as much as Readie to helpe and succour For to punish and torment pertaineth to divels and the furious fiends of hel there is no celestiall divine and heavenly thing in it And like as one said of King Philip when he had rased destroyed the citie Olynthus Yea marie but he is not able to set up such another citie in the place even so a man may well say unto Anger Thou canst overthrow demolish marre and pull downe but to reare and erect againe to save to pardon and to endure be the properties of meeknesse clemencie mildnes patience and moderation they be the parts I say of Camillus Metellus Aristides and Socrates whereas to sticke close unto the flesh to pinch pricke and bite are the qualities of pismires flies and mice Moreover and besides when I looke unto Revenge and the manner thereof I finde for the most part that if men proceede by way of choler they misse of their purpose for commonly all the heat desire of revenge is spent in biting of lips gnashing and grating of teeth vaine running to and fro in railing words with foolish threats and menaces among that favour of no wit at all By which meanes it fareth with them afterwards as with little children in running of a race who for feeblenesse being not able to hold out fall downe before they come unto the goale whereunto they made such ridiculous and foolish haste And therfore in my conceit it was not an improper answere which a certaine Rhodian made unto one of the Lictours and officers of a Romane Generall or Lord Proetor who with wide mouth bauled at him and made a glorious bragging and boasting I passe not quoth he one whit what thou saist I care rather for that which he thinketh there that saith nothing In like manner Sophocles when he had brought in Eurypylus and Neoptolemus all armed speaketh bravely in their commendation thus They dealt no threates in vaine no taunts they made nor boasting words But to 't they went and on their shields they laid on load with swords And verily some barbarous nations there arewho use to poison their swords other weapons of iron but valour hath no need at all of the venim of choler for dipped it is in reason judgement whereas whatsoever is corrupted with ire and furie is brittle rotten and easie to be broken into pieces Which is the reason that the Lacedaemonians doe allay the choler of their souldiors when they are fighting with the melodious sound of flutes and pipes whose manner is also before they goe to battell to sacrifice unto the Muses to the ende that their reason and right wits may remaine in them still and that they may have use thereof yea and when they have put their enemies to flight they never pursue after nor follow the chase but reclaime and hold their furious anger within compasse which they are able to weld and manage as they list no lesse than these daggers or courtlaces which are of a meane size and reasonable length Contrariwise anger hath beene the cause that many thousands have come short of the execution of vengeance and miscarried by the way As for example Cyrus and Pelopidas the Thebane among the rest But Agathocles endured patiently to heare himselfe reproched and reviled by those whom hee besieged and when one of them said You Potter there Heare you Where will you have silver to pay your mercenarie souldiers and strangers their wages Hee laughed againe and made answere Even out of this citie when I have once forced it Some there were also that mocked and scorned Antigonus from the verie walles and twitted him with his deformitie and evill favoured face But he said no more than thus Why And I tooke my selfe before to have beene verie faire and well favoured Now when he had woon the towne he sold in open port-sale those that had so flouted him protesting withal unto them that if from that time forward they mocked him any more he would tell their masters of them and call them to account Moreover I doe see that hunters yea and oratours also commit many faults in their choler And Aristotle doth report that the friends of Satyrus the Oratour in one cause that he had to plead for them stopped his eares with waxe for feare lest that he when he heard his adversaries to raile upon him in their pleas should marre all in his anger And do not I pray you we our selves many times misse of punishing our servants by this meanes when they have done some faults for when they heare us to threaten and give out in our anger that we will doe thus and thus unto them they be so frighted that they runne away
angry with himselfe and displeased that he is not at once both a savage lion of the forrest bolde and venturous of his owne strength and withall a daintie fine puppie of Malta cherished and fostered in the lappe and bosome of some delicate dame and rich widdow commend me to him for a senselesse foole of all fooles and to say a sooth I holde him also as very an asse and doltish fop who will needs bee such an one as Empedocles Plato and Democritus namely to write of the world of the nature and true essence of all things therein and withal to keepe a rich olde trot and sleepe with her every night as Euphorion did or els like unto those who kept company with Alexander the great in drinking and gaming as one Medius did and yet thinke it a great abuse and indignity forsooth if he may not be as much admired for his wealth as Ismenias and esteemed no lesse for his vertue than Epaminondas We see that the runners in a race be not discontented at all if they weare not the garlands and coronets of wrestlers but rest pleased with their owne rewards and therein delight and rejoice It is an olde said saw and a common proverbe Sparta is thy lot and Province looke well to it and adorne the same For it is a saying also of wise Solon And yet we will not change our boone With them for all their wealth and golde Goods passe from man to man full soone Ours vertue is a sure free holde Strato the naturall Philosopher when he heard that Menedemus his Concurrent had many more scholars by far than he What marvel is that quoth he if there more that desire to be washed and bathed than are willing to be anointed rubbed Aristotle writing to Antipater It is not meet quoth he that Alexander alone should thinke highly of himselfe in that he is able to command so many men but they also have good cause to be aswell conceited of themselves who have the grace to beleeve of the gods as they ought For surely they that thus can make the best use of their owne estate shall never be vexed nor at their neighbours wel-fare pine away for very envie Which of us now doeth require or thinke it fit that the vine-tree should beare figges or the olive grapes and yet we our selves if we may not have all at once to wit the superiority and preeminence among rich men among eloquent orators and learned clearks both at home and abroad in the schooles among Philosophers in the field among warriors aswell among flattering claw-backs as plaine spoken and tel-troth friends to conclude unlesse we may goe before all pinching peny-fathers in frugalitie yea and surpasse all spend-thrifts in riot and prodigallity we are out of our little wits we accuse our selves daily like sycophants we are unthankeful we repine and grumble as if we lived in penury and want Over and besides do we not see that Nature herselfe doeth teach us sufficiently in this point For like as she hath provided for sundry kinds of bruit and wilde beasts divers sorts of food for all feed not upon flesh all pecke not upon seeds and graines of plants neither doe all live upon roots which they worke from under the ground even so she hath bestowed upon mankinde many meanes to get their living while some live by graffing and feeding of cattell others by tillage some be Fowlers others Fishers and therefore ought every man to chuse that course of life which sorteth best with his owne nature and wholly to apply and set his minde thereto leaving unto others that which pertaineth to them and not to reprove and convince Hesiodus when he thus speaketh although not to the full and sufficiently to the point The Potter to Potter doth beare envie One Carpenter to another hath a spightfull eie For jealous we are not onely of those who exercise the same art and follow that course of life which we do but the rich also do envie the learned and eloquent noble men the rich advocates and lawiers captious and litigious sophisters yea and that which more is gentlemen free-borne and descended from noble and auncient houses envie Comedians when they have acted well and with a good grace upon the stage in great Theaters dauncers also and jesters in the court whom they see to be in favor and credite with Kings and Princes and whiles they do admire these and thinke them happie for their good speed and successe in comparison of their owne doings they fret and grieve and out of measure torment themselves Now that everie one of us hath within himselfe treasuries laid up of contentment and discontentment and certeine tunnes of good things and evil not bestowed as Homer said Unto the doore-sill and entrie of Jupiters house but placed in each of our owne mindes the divers passions whereunto we are subject do sufficiently proove and shew For such as are foolish and unadvised doe neglect and let go the very good things that presently they have and never care to enjoy them so intentive and earnestly bent are their mindes and spirits alwaies to that which is comming and future expectation whereas wise men on the contrary side call to their fresh remembrance those things that are past so as they seeme to enjoy the same as if they were present yea and in make that which is no more to be as beneficiall unto them as if they were ready and at hand For surely that which is present yeelding it selfe to be touched by us but the least moment of time that is immediately passing our senses seemeth unto fooles to be none of ours nor any more to concerne us But like as the Roper which is painted in the tēple of Pluto or description of Hell suffereth an asse behind him to gnaw eate a rope as fast as he twisteth it of the Spartbroome even so the unthankfull and senselesse oblivion of many ready to catch and devoure al good things as they passe by yea and to dissipate and cause to vanish away every honest and notable action all vertuous deeds duties delectable recreations and pleasant pastimes all good fellowship and mutuall societie and all amiable conversation one with another will not permit that the life be one and the same linked as it were and cheined by the coppulation of things passed and present but deviding yesterday from to day and this day from the morrow as if they were sundry parts of our life bringeth in such a forgetfulnesse as if things once past had never beene As for those verily who in their disputations and Philosophicall discourses admit no augmentation of bodies affirming that every substance continually fadeth and vanisheth would make us beleeve in word that each one of us every howre altereth from himselfe and no man is the same to day that he was yesterday but these for fault of memorie not able to reteine and keepe those things that are done and past no nor to
even those things that we are not able to cōpasse make good as namely our commendatorie letters for to finde favour in princes courts to be mediators for them unto great rulers and governors and to talke with them about their causes as being neither willing nor so hardie as thus to say The king knoweth not us hee regardeth others more and you were better go to such and such After this manner when Lysander had offended king Agesilaus and incurred his heavy displeasure and yet was thought woorthie to be chiefe in credit above all those that were about him in regard of the great opinion and reputation that men had of him for his noble acts he never bashed to repell and put backe those suters that came unto him making excuse and bidding them to go unto others and assay them who were in greater credit with the king than himselfe For it is no shame not to be able to effect all things but for a man to be driven upon a foolish modestie to enterprise such matters as he is neither able to compasse nor meet to mannage besides that it is shamefull I hold it also a right great corrosive to the heart But now to goe unto another principle we ought willingly and with a ready heart to doe pleasure unto those that request at our hands such things as be meet and reasonable not as forced thereto by a rusticall feare of shame but as yeelding unto reason and equity Contrariwise if their demaunds be hurtfull absurd and without all reason we ought evermore to have the saying of Zeno in readinesse who meeting with a yoong man one of his acquaintance walking close under the towne wall secretly as if he would not be seene asked of him the cause of his being there and understanding by him that it was because he would avoide one of his friends who had beene earnest with him to beare false witnes in his behalfe What saist thou quoth Zeno sot that thou art Was thy friend so bold and shamelesseto require that of thee which is unreasonable unjust and hurtfull unto thee And darest thou not stand against him in that which is just and honest For whosoever he was that said A crooked wedge is fit to cleave a knotted knurry tree It well be seemes against leawd folke with lewdnesse arm'd to be teacheth us an ill lesson to learne to be naught our selves when we would be revenged of naughtinesse But such as repulse those who impudently and with a shamelesse face doe molest and trouble them not suffering themselves to be overcome with shamefacednesse but rather shame to graunt unto shamelesse beggers those things that be shameful are wise men and well advised doing herein that which is right and just Now as touching those importunate and shamelesse persons who otherwise are but obscure base and of no woorth it is of no great matter to resist them when they be troublesome unto us And some there be who make no more ado but shift them off with laughter or a skoffe like as Theocritus served twaine who would seeme to borrow of him his rubber or currying combe in the verie baine of which two the one was a meere stranger unto him the other he knew well enough for a notorious theefe I know not you quoth he to the one and to the other I know what you are well enough and so he sent them both away with a meere frumpe Lysimache the priestresse of Minerva in Athens surnamed Polias that is the patronesse of the citie when certaine Muletters who brought sacrifices unto the temple called unto her for to powre them out drinke freely No quoth she my good friends I may not do so for feare you will make a custome of it Antigonus had under him in his retinue a yoong gentleman whose father in times past had bene a good warriour and lead a band or company of souldiours but himselfe was a very coward and of no service and when he sued unto him in regard of his birth to be advanced unto the place of his father late deceased Yoong man quoth he my maner is to recompense and honour the prowesse and manhood of my souldiours and not their good parentage But if the party who assaileth our modesty be a noble man of might and authority and such kinde of persons of all other will most hardly endure a repulse and be put off with a deniall or excuse and namely in the case of giving sentence or award in a matter of judgement or in a voice at the election of magistrates preadventure it may be thought neither easie nor necessarie to doe that which Cato sometimes did being then but of yoong yeeres unto Catulus now this Catulus was a man of exceeding great authoritie among the Romans and for that time bare the Censureship who came unto Cato then Lord high treasurer of Rome that yeere as a mediatour and intercessour for one who had bene condemned before by Cato in a round fine pressing and importuning him so hard with earnest praier and entreaty that in the end Cato seeing how urgent and unreasonable he was and not able to endure him any longer was forced to say thus unto him You would thinke it a foule disgrace and shame for you Catulus Censour as you are since you will not receive an answere and be gone if my serjeants and officers here should take you by the head and shoulders and send you away with that Catulus being abashed and ashamed departed in great anger and discontentment But consider rather and see whether the answere of Agesilaus and that which Themistocles made were not more modest and savoured of greater humanity for Agesilaus when his own father willed him to give sentence in a certain cause that was brought before him against all right and directly contrary to the lawes Father quoth he your selfe have taught me from my very child-hood to obey the lawes I will be therfore obedient still to your good precepts and passe no judgement against law As for Themistocles when as Simontdes seemed to request of him some what which was unjust and unlawfull Neither were you Simonides quoth he a good Poet if you should not keepe time and number in your song nor I a good Magistrate if I should judge against the law And yet as Plato was woont to say it is not for want of due proportion betweene the necke and body of the lute that one citie is at variance with another citie and friends fall out and be at difference doing what mischiefe they can one to another and suffering the like againe but for this rather that they offend and faile in that which concerneth law and justice Howbeit you shall have some who themselves observing the precise rules most exactly according to art in Musicke in Grammaticall orthographie and in the Poeticall quantitie of syllables and measures of feet can be in hand with others and request them to neglect and forget that which they ought to do in the
of the other Over and besides no man deserveth justly to be envied for to be in prosperitie and in better state than another is no wrong or injurie offered to any person and yet this is it for which men be envied whereas contrariwise many are hated worthily such as those whom in Greeke we call 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that is to say worthy of publike hatred as also as many as do not flie from such detest them not nor abhorre their companie And a great argument to verifie this point may be gathered from hence namely in that some there be who confesse and take it upon them that they hate many but no man will be knowen that he envieth any for in trueth the hatred of wicked persons and of wickednesse is commended as a quallitie in men praise-woorthy And to this purpose serveth well that which was said of Charillus who reigned in Sparta and was Lycurgus his brothers sonne whom when there were certeine that commended for a man of milde behaviour and of a relenting and gentle nature And how can it be quoth he who was joined with him in the roiall government that Charillus should be good seeing he is not sharpe and rigorous to the wicked And the Poet Homer describing the deformitie of Thersytes his bodie depainted his defects and imperfections in sundrie parts of his person and by many circumlocutions but his perverse nature and crooked conditions he set downe briefly and in one word in this wise Worthy Achilles of all the host And sage ulysses he hated most for he could not chuse but be starke naught and wicked in the highest degree who was so full of hatred unto the best men As for those who denie that they are envious in case they be convinced manifestly therein they have a thousand pretenses and excuses therefore alledging that they are angry with the man or stand in feare of him whom indeed they beare envie unto or that they hate him colouring and cloaking this passion of envie with the vaile of any other whatsoever for to hide and cover it as if it were the only malady of the soule that would be concealed and dissembled It cannot chuse therefore but that these two passions be nourished and grow as plants of one kinde by the same meanes considering that naturally they succeed one the other howbeit wee rather hate those that be given more to leawdnesse and wickednesse and we envy such rather who seeme to excel others in vertue And therfore Themistocles being but a youth gave out and said that he had done nothing notable because as yet he was not envied for like as the flies cantharides settle principally upon that wheat which is the fairest and come to full perfection and likewise sticke unto the roses that are most out and in the verie pride of their flowring even so envie taketh commonly unto the best conditioned persons and to such as are growing to the height of vertue and honour whereas contrariwise the leawdest qualities that be and wicked in the highest degree doe mightily moove and augment hatred and heereupon it was that the Athenians had them in such derestable hatred and abhorred them so deadly who by their slanderous imputations brought good Socrates their fellow-citizen to his death insomuch as they would not vouchsafe either to give them a coale or two of fire or light their candles or deine them an answer when they asked a question nay they would not wash or bathe together with them in the same water but commanded those servitours in the baines which were called Parachytae that is to say drawers and laders of water into the bathing vessels to let foorth that as polluted and defiled wherein they had washed whereupon they seeing themselves thus excommunicate and not able to endure this publike hatred which they had incurred being wearie of their lives hung and strangled themselves On the contrary side it is often seene that the excellency of vertue honor and glory and the extraordinarie successe of men is so much that it doth extinguish and quench all envie For it is not a likely or credible matter that any man bare envie unto Cyrus or Alexander the great after they were become the onely lords and monarches of the whole world but like as the sunne when he is directly and plumb over the head or top of any thing causeth either no shadow at all or the same very small and short by the reason that his light overspreadeth round about even so when the prosperitie of a man is come to the highest point and have gotten over the head of envie then the said envie retireth and is either gone altogether or else drawen within a little roome by reason of that brightnesse over-spreading it but contrariwise the grandence of fortune and puissance in the enimies doth not one jot abreviate or allay the hatred of their evill willers and that this is true may appeere by the example of Alexander aboue named who had not one that envied him but many enimies he found and those malicious and by them in the end he was traiterously for-laied and murdered Semblably adversities may well staie envie and cause it cease but enmitie and hatred they do not abolish for men never give over to despite their enimies no not when they are brought lowe and oppressed with calamities whereas you shall not see one in miserie envied But most true is that saying found of a certeine sophister or great professour in our daies That envious persons of all other be ever pittifull and delight most in commiseration so that heerein lieth one of the greatest differences betweene these two passions that hatred departeth not from those persons of whom it hath once taken hold neither in the prosperitie nor adversitie of those whom they hate whereas envie doth avoid and vanish away to nothing upon extremitie aswell of the one as the other Over and besides we may the better discover the difference also of them by the contraries for hatred enmitie and malice cease presently so soone as a man is perswaded that he hath caught no harme nor susteined injurie by the party or when he hath conceived an opinion that such as he hated for their leawdnesse are reformed and become honest men or thirdly if he have received some pleasure or good turne at their hand for evermore the last favor that is shewed as Thucydides saith though it be lesse than many others yet if it come in season and a good time is able to do out a greater offence taken before Now of these three causes before specified the first doth not wash away envie for say that men were perswaded at the first that they received give not over for all that to beare envie still and as for the two later they do irritate and provoke it the 〈◊〉 for such as they esteeme men of qualitie and good woorth those they doe eie-bite more than before as having vertue the greatest good that is and
our paramours and concubines and not unto such great captaines as your selfe But Cato after a more surly and boislerous sort in the like case answered unto Catulus one of his inward and most familiar friends This Catulus being Censour mooved Cato who then was but Questour or Treasurer that for his sake he would dismisse and set free one of his clerks of the Finances under him against whom he had commensed sute and entred processe in law That were a great shame in deed quoth he for you who are the Censour that is to say the corrector and reformer of our maners and who ought to schoole and instruct us that be of the yonger sort thus to be put out of your course by our under officers and ministers for he might well enough have denied to condescend unto his request in deed and effect without such sharpe and biting words and namely by giving him to understand that this displeasure that he did him in refusing to doe the thing was against his will and that he could neither will nor chuse being forced thereto by justice and the law Over and besides a man in government hath good meanes with honesty and honor to helpe his poore friends that they may advantage themselves and reape benefit by him from the common-wealth Thus did Themistocles after the battell at Marathon for seeing one of them that lay dead in the field to have hanging at his necke chaines and collars with other bracelets of gold about his armes passed by and would not seeme for his owne part to meddle with them but turning backe to a familiar friend of his one of his folowers Here quoth he off with these ornaments and take them to your selfe for you are not yet come to be such an one as Themistocles Moreover the affaires and occurrences daily incident in the world doe present vnto a magistrate and great ruler such like occasions whereby he may be able to benefit and entich his friends for all men cannot be wealthy nor like to you ô Menemachus Give then unto one friend a good and just cause to plead unto and defend which he may gaine well by and fill his purse unto another recommend the affaires and businesse of some great and rich personage who hath neede of a man that knoweth how to manage and order the same better than himselfe for another harken out where there is a good bargaine to be made as namely in the undertaking of some publicke worke or helpe him to the taking of a good farme at a reasonable rent whereby he may be a gainer Epaminondas would do more than thus for upon a time he sent one of his friends who was but poore unto a rich burgesse of Thebes to demaund a whole talent of money freely to be given unto him and to say that Epammondas commanded him to deliver so much The burgesse woondring at such a message came unto Epaminondas to know the cause why hee should part with a talent of silver unto him mary quoth he this is the reason The man whom I sent is honest but poore and you by robbing the common-wealth are become rich And by report of Xenophon Agesilaus tooke no smal joy glory in this that he had enriched his friends whiles himselfe made no account at all of money But forasmuch according to the saying of Simonides as all larks ought to have a cap or crest upon the head so every government of State bringeth with it enmities envies and litigious jealousies this is a point wherein a man of estate and affaires ought to be well enformed and instructed To begin therefore to treat of this argument many there be who highly praise Themistocles and Aristides for that whensoever they were to goe out of the territorie of Attica either in embassage or to manage warres together they had no sooner their charge and commission but they presently laid downe all the quarrels and enmitie betweene even in the very confines and frontiers of their countrey and afterwards when they were returned tooke up and enterteined them againe Some also there are who be wonderfull well pleased with the practise and fashion of Cretinas the Magnesian This Cretinas had for his concurrent an adversary in the government of State a noble man of the same citie named Hermias who although he were not very rich yet ambitious he was and caried a brave and hautie minde Cretinas in the time of the warre that Mithridates made for the conquest of Asia seeing the citie in danger went unto the said Hermias and made an offer unto him to take the charge of captaine generall for the defence of the citie and in the meane while himselfe would go foorth to retire to some other place or otherwise if he thought better that himselfe should take upon him the charge of the warre then he would depart out of the citie into the countrey for the time for feare lest if they taried both behinde and hindered one another as they were woont to doe by their ambitious minds they should vndoo the state of the citie This motion liked Hermias very well who confessing that Cretinas was a more expert warrior than himselfe departed with his wife and children out of the citie Now Cretinas made meanes to send him out before with a convoy putting into his hands his owne money as being more profitable to them who were without their houses and fled abroad than to such as lay besieged within the citie which being at the point to be lost was by this meanes preserved beyond al hope and expectation for if this be a noble and generous speech proceeding from a magnanimous hart to say thus with a loud voice My children well I loue but of my hart My native soile by farre hath greater part Why should not they have this speech readier in their mouthes to say unto every one I hate this or that man and willing I would be to doe him a displeasure but my native countrey I love so much the more For not to desire to be at variance and debate still with an enimie in such causes as for which we ought to abandon and cast off our friend were the part of a most fell savage and barbarous nature yet did Phocion and Cato better in mine opinion who enterteined not any enmitie with their citizens in regard of difference and variance betweene them about bearing rule and government but became implacable and irreconcilable onely in publike causes when question was of abandoning or hurting the weale publike for otherwise in private matters they caried themselves kindly enough without any ranckor or malice even toward them against whom they had contested in open place as touching the State for we ought not to esteeme or repute any citizen an enimie unlesse such an one be bred amongst them as Aristion or Nabis or Catiline who are to be reckoned botches rather and pestilent maladies of a citie than citizens for all others if haply they be at a jarre
drive the same without forth to the superficiall parts but contrariwise a man of government if he be not able to keepe a citie altogether in peace concord but that some troubles will arise yet at leastwise he must endevour to conteine that within the citie which is the cause thereof and nurceth the sedition and in keeping it close to labour for to heale and remedie it to this end that if it be possible he have no need either of physician or physicke from forren parts for the intentions of a man of State and government ought to be these namely to proceed in his affaires surely and to flie the violent and furious motions of vaine-glorie as hath beene said alreadie howbeit in his resolution A courage bold and full of confidence Undaunted heart and fearlesse be must have Which will not quatle for any consequence But see the end much like to sculdiors brave In field themselves who manly do behave And hazard lims and life for to defend Their countrey deere and enemies to off end and not onely to oppose himselfe against enemies but also to be armed against perilous troubles and dangerous tumults that he may be readie to resist and make head for he ought not in any case himselfe to moove tempests and raise commotions no nor when he seeth boisterous stormes comming forsake and leave his countrey in time of need He must nor I say drive his citie under his charge upon apparent danger but so soone as ever it once begin to be tossed and to float in jeopardie than is it his part to come to succor by casting out from himselfe as it were a sacred Anchor that is to say to use his boldnesse and libertie of speech considering that now the maine point of all lieth a bleeding even the safetie of his countrey Such were the dangers that hapned unto Pergamus in Neroes time and of late daies to the Rhodians during the Empire of Domitian as also before unto the Thessalians while Augustus was Emperour by occasion that they had burned Petraeus quick In these and such like occurrences a man of State and government especially if he be woorthie of that name Never shall you see Sleepie for to bee nor drawing his foote backe for feare no nor to blame and lay the fault of others ne yet to make shift for one and put himselfe out of the medley of danger but either going in embassage or embarked in some ship at sea or else readie to speake first and to say not onely thus We we Apollo have this murder don From these our coasts avert this plague anon but although himselfe be not culpable at all with the multitude yet will he put his person into danger for them For surely this is an act right honest and besides the honestie in it selfe it hapneth divers times that the vertue and noble courage of such a man hath beene so highly admired that it hath daunted the anger conceived against a whole multitude and dispatched all the fiercenesse and furie of a bitter menace like as it befell unto a King of Persia in regard of Bulis and Sperthis two gentlemen of Sparta and as it was seene in Pompey to his host and friend Sthenon for when he was fully determined to chastice the Mamertines sharpely and to proceede against them in all rigor for that they had rebelled the said Sthenon stept unto him and thus frankly spake That he should do neither well nor justly in case he did to death a number of innocents for one man who alone was faultie for it is I my selfe quoth he who caused the whole citie to revolt and take armes inducing my friends for love and forcing mine enemies for feare These words of his went so neere unto the heart of Pompey that he pardoned the citie and most courteously entreated Sthenon semblaby the host of Sylla having shewed the like valour and vertue although it were not to the like person died a noble death for when Sylla had woon the citie Praenesle by assault he meant to put all the inhabitants thereof to the sword excepting onely one host of his whom in regard of old hospitalite he spared and pardoned but this host friend said flatly unto him that he would never remaine alive to see that bloudy massacre not hold his life by the murtherer of his countrey and so cast himselfe into the troupe of his fellow-citizens in the heate of execution and was killed with them Well pray unto the gods we ought to preserve and keepe us that we fall not into such calamities and troublesome times to hope also and looke for better daies Moreover we are to esteeme of everie publike magistracie and of him who exerciseth it as of a great and sacred thing and in that regard to honour the same above all Now the honour which is due unto authoritie is the mutuall accord and love of those who are set in place to exercise the same together and verily this honor is much more worth than either all those crownes and diademes which they beare upon their heads or their stately mantles and roabes of purple wherewith they be arraied Howbeit they that laid the first ground and beginning of amitie their service in warres when they were fellow-souldiors or the passing of their youthfull yeeres together and contrariwise take this a cause now of enmitie that they either are joined captaines in commission for the conduct of an armie or have the charge of the Common-weale together it can not be avoided but that they must incur one of these three mischiefes For either if they esteem their fellowes and companions in government to be their equals they begin themselves first to grow into tearmes of dissention or if they take them to be their betters they fall to be envious or else in case they hold them to be inferiour unto them in good parts they despise contemne them Whereas they should indeed make court unto the greater honor and adorne their equals and advance their inferiors and in one word to love and embrace all as having an amitie and love engendred among themselves not because they have eaten at one table drunke of the same cup or met together at one feast but by a certaine common band and publike obligation as having in some sort a certaine fatherly benevolence contracted and growen upon the common affection unto their countrey Certes one reason why Scipio was not so well thought of at Rome was this that having invited all his friends to a solemne feast at the dedication of his temple to Hercules he left out Mummius his colleague or fellow in office for say that otherwise they tooke not one another for so good friends yet so it is that at such a time and upon such occasions they ought to have honored and made much one of the other by reason of their common magistracie If then Scipio a noble personage otherwise and a man of woonderfull regard incurred the imputation and
conceive and imagine in our selves what great pleasures vertues do yeeld unto those who effect any commendable action tending to the good of their countrey turning to the profit of the common-weale they tickle not they itch not neither do they after a stroking manner give contentment as do these sweete motions and gentle prickes of the flesh for such bring with them a certaine impatient itch an unconstant tickling mingled with a furious hear and inflammation but those pleasures which come from notable and praise-woorthie deeds such as they be whereof the ordinarie workman and author is he who governeth a common-weale aright and as it appertaineth unto him for to doe lift up and raise the soule to a greatnesse and haughtinesse of courage accompained with joy not with gilded plumes as Euripides saith but with celestiall wings as Plato was woont to say And that the truth hereof may the better appeere call to remembrance your selfe that which oftentimes you have heard concerning Epaminondas who being asked upon a time what was the greatest pleasure that ever he felt in all his life answered thus Marie even this quoth he that it was my fortune to win the field at the battell of Leuctres my father and mother both being yet living And Sylla the first time that he came to Rome after he had cleered Italy from civill and domesticall warres could not sleepe one winke nor lay his eies together a whole night for exceeding great joy and contentment wherewith his spirit was ravished as if it had beene with a mightie and violent wind and thus much he wrote of himselfe in his owne Commentaries I can therefore hold well with Xenophon in that hee saith That there is no sound or speech more delectable to a mans eare than the hearing of his owne praises and even so it must bee confessed That there is no spectacle no sight no report and memoriall no cogitation nor thought in the world that bringeth so great pleasure delectation to the mind as doth the contemplation and beholding of those good and laudable deeds which a man hath performed whiles he was employed in the administration of State and in bearing offices as being conspicuous eminent and publike places to be seene afarre off True it is moreover that the amiable grace and favour thereby gotten accompanying alwaies vertuous acts and bearing witnesse therto the commendation also of the people who strive a vie and contend who can give out greatest praise and speake most good the verie guide which leadeth the way of just and due benevolence doth adde a glosse and lustre as it were unto the joy proceeding from vertue for to polish and beautifie the same Neither ought a man by negligence to suffer for to fade and wither in old age the glorie of his good deeds like unto a cornet or garland of greene leaves which was woon at some games of prize but evermore to bring foorth some fresh and new demerites to stir up and awaken as a man would say the grace of the old deeds precedent and thereby to make the same both greater and also more permanent and durable For like as the carpenters and shipwrights who had the charge to maintaine the ship called the Gallion of Delos evermore made supply of new pieces of timber as anie of the olde began to decaie keeping it in continuall reparation by putting in one ribbe and planke for another and so preserved it alwaies entire and whole as it was the verie first daie when it was built even so a man is to doe by his reputation and credit And no harder matter is it for to maintaine glorie once up and on foote than to keepe a fire continually flaming which is once kindled by putting eftsoones fresh fewell under bee it never so little for to feede the same but if they bee once out and throughly quenched indeede then it is no small matter to set either the one or the other a burning againe And like as Lampas the rich merchant and shipmaster being demaunded how he got his goods Marie quoth he my greatest wealth I gained soone and with ease but my smaller estate with exceeding much paine and slowly even so it is no easie matter at the beginning to acquire reputation or to win credit and authoritie in the managing of civill affaires but to augment it after the foundation is laid or to preserve and uphold the same when it is once come to greatnes is not so hard for every litle thing the smallest meanes wil do it And so we see that a friend when he is onece had requireth not many great pleasures offices of kindnesse friendship for to be kept and continued a friend stil but petie tokens smal signes of curtesie passing continually from time to time betweene are sufficient to preserve mutuall love and amity Semblablie the good will and affection of the people their trust confidence which they have conceived towards a man although he be not able evermore to give largesses among them although he doe not alwaies defend and mainteine their causes nor sit continually in place of magistracie and office yet neverthelesse it holdeth still if he doe but shew himselfe onely to carie a good heart unto them not to cease for to take paines care for the common good nor refuse any service in that behalfe for even the very expeditions and voiages in warre have not alwaies battailes araunged nor fields fought and bloudie skirmishes ne yet besieging and beleaguing of cities but they afford betweene whiles festivall sacrifices parlies enterviewes some leasure also and time of rest to follow games disports and pastimes How then commeth it that an old man should be afraid to meddle in State affaires as if it were a charge unsupportable full of infinite and innumerable travels without any comfort and consolation at all considering that there be allowed at times varietie of plaies and games goodly sights and shewes solemne precessions and stately pompes publike doles and largesses daunces musicke and seasts and ever and anon the honorable service and worship of one god or other which are able to unknit the frownes and unbend the browes to dispatch and dissipate the cloudy cares and austeritie of the judges in court hall and of senatours also in counsell chamber yeelding unto them much more pleasure contentment in proportion to their travels and paines belonging to their place As for the greatest mischief which is most to be feared in such administrations of the common-weale to wit envy it setleth taketh least hold upon old age of any other for like as Heraclitus was wont to say That dogs do baie barke at those whom they know not even so envie assaileth him who beginneth to governe just at the dore as it were and the entrie of the tribunall and throne of estate seeking to impeach his accesse and passage thither but after it is accustomed and acquainted once with the glorie of a man and
boord onely without worke of any other tooles or instruments at all unto whom he answered Because our citizens should be moderate in all things that they bring into their houses and have no furniture therein that might set other mens teeth on water or which other men do so much affect From this custome by report it came that king Leotychides the first of that name being at supper in a friends house of his when he saw the roofe over his head richly seeled with embowed arch-worke demanded of his host whether the trees in that countrey grew square or no When he was asked why he forbad to make warre often against the same enemies For feare quoth he that being forced estsoones to stand upon their owne guard and put themselves in defence they should in the end become well experienced in the warres in which regard Agesilaus afterwards was greatly blamed for being the cause by his continuall expeditions and invasions into Boeotia that the Thebans were equall in armes unto the Lacedaemonians Another asked also of him why he enjoined maidens marriageable to exercise their bodies in running wrestling pitching the barre flinging coits and lancing of darts For this purpose quoth he that the first rooting of their children which they are to breed taking fast and sure holde in able bodies wel set and strongly knit might spring and thrive the better within them and they also themselves being more firme and vigorous beare children afterward the better be prepared and exercised as it were to endure the paines and travels of child-birth easily and stoutly over and besides if need required be able to fight in defence of themselves their children and countrey Some there were who found fault with the custome that he brought in that the maidens of the city at certeine festivall daies should dance naked in solemne shewes and pomps that were set demanding the cause thereof to whom hee rendred this reason That they performing the same exercises which men do might be no lesse enabled than they either in strength and health of body or in vertue and generosity of minde and by that meanes checke and despise the opinion that the vulgar sort had of them And from hence it came that Gorgo the wife of Leonidas as we finde written when a certeine dame and ladie of a forren countrey said unto her There be no other women but you Laconian wives that have men at command answered in this wise For why we onely are the women that beare men Moreover he debarted and kept those men who remained unmarried from the sight of those shewes where the yoong virgins aforesaid danced naked and that which more is set upon them the note of infamie in depriving them expresly of that honour and service which yonger solke are bound to yeeld unto their elders in which doing he had a great foresight and providence to move his citizens to marriage and for to beget children by occasion whereof there was never any man yet who misliked and complained of that which was said unto Dercillidas by way of reproch though otherwise he was a right good and valiant captaine for when he came upon a time into a place one of the yonger sort there was who would not deigne to rise up unto him nor give him any reverence and this reason he gave Because quoth he as yet you have not begotten a childe to rise up and doe his duety likewise to me Another asked of him wherefore he had ordeined that daughters should be married without a dowrie or portion given with them Because quoth he for default of marriage-money none of them might stay long ere they were wedded nor be hearkened after for their goods but that every man regarding onely the maners and conditioins of a yoong damosell might make choise of her whom he meaneth to espouse for her vertue onely which is the reason also that he banished out of Sparta all maner of painting trimming and artificiall embelishments to procure a superficiall beauty and complexion Having also prefixed and set downe a certeine time within the which aswell maidens as yoong men might marrie one would needs know of him why he limited forth such a definite terme unto whom he answered Because their children might be strong and lustie as being begotten and conceived of such persons as be already come to their full growth Some woondered why hee would not allow that the new married bridegrome should lie with his espouse but expresly gave order that the most part of the day hee should converse with his companions yea and all the nights long but whensoever hee went to keepe company with his new wedded wife it should be secretly and with great heed and care that hee be not surprized or found with her This quoth he is done to this end that they may be alwaies more strong and in better plight of body also that by not enjoying their delights and pleasures to the full their love might be ever fresh and their infants betweene them more hardie and stout furthermore hee remooved out of the citie all precious and sweete persumes saying That they were no better than the verie marring and corruption of the good naturall oile the art also of dying and tincture which he said was nothing else but the slatterie of the senses to be briefe he made the citie Sparta inaccessible as I may say for all jewelers and fine workmen who professe to set out and adorne the body giving out that such by their lewd artificiall devices do deprave and marre the good arts and mysteries in deed In those daies the honestie and pudicitie of dames was such and so far off were they from that tractable facilitie and easie accesse unto their love which was afterwards that adulterie among them was held for an unpossible and uncredible thing And to this pupose may well be remembred the narration of one Geradatas an ancient Spartane of whom a stranger asked the question What punishment adulterers were to suffer in the citie of Sparta for that he saw Lycurgus had set downe no expresse law in that behalfe Why quoth he there is no adulterie among us but when the other replied againe Yea but what and if there were even the same answere made Geradatas and none other For how quoth he can there be an adulterer in Sparta wherein all riches all superfluous delights and dainties all outward trickings and embelishings of the bodie are despised and dishonoured and where shame of doing ill honestie reverence and obeisance to superiors carrie away all the credit and authoritie One put himselfe forward and was in hand with him to set up and establish the popular State of government in Sparta unto whom hee answered Begin it thy selfe first within thine owne house And unto another who demaunded of him why he ordained the sacrifices in Lacedaemon so simple and of smal cost To the end quoth he that we should never cease and give over to worship and honour the gods
Philosophie But I pray you my very good friend quoth I unto him forbeare this vehement and accusatorie humour of yours and be not angry if haply you see that some because they be borne of leud and wicked parents are punished or else doe not rejoice so much nor be ready to praise in case you see nobilitie also of birth to be so highly honored for if we stand upon this point and dare avow that recompence of vertue ought by right and reason to continue in the line and posteritie we are by good consequence to make this account that punishment likewise should not stay and cease together with misdeeds committed but reciprocally fall upon those that are descended of misdoers and malefactors for he who willingly seeth the progenie of Cimon honoured at Athens and contrariwise is offended and displeased in his heart to see the race of Lachares or Ariston banished driven out of the citie he I say seemeth to be too soft tender and passing effeminate or rather to speake more properly over-contentious and quarrelsome even against the gods complaining and murmuring of the one side if the children childrens children of an impious wicked person do prosper in the world and contrariwise is no lesse given to blame and find fault if he doe see the posterity of wicked and ungracious men to be held under plagued or altogether destroied from the face of the earth accusing the gods if the children of a naughtie man be afflicted even as much as if they had honest persons to their parents But as for these reasons alledged make you this reckoning that they be bulwarks and rampars for you opposed against such bitter sharpe accusers as these be But now taking in hand again the end as it were of a clew of thread or a bottom of yearne to direct us as in a darke place and where there be many cranks turnings and windings to and fro I meane the matter of gods secret judgements let us conduct and guide our selves gently and warily according to that which is most likely probable considering that even of those things which we daily manage and doe our selves we are not able to set downe an undoubted certaintie as for example who can yeeld a sound reason wherefore we cause and bid the children of those parents who died either of the phthisick and consumption of the lungs or of the dropsie to sit with their feet drenched in water until the dead corps be fully burned in the funeral fire For an opiniō there is that by this meanes the said maladies shall not passe unto them as hereditarie nor take hold of their bodies as also what the cause should be that if a goat hold in her mouth the herbe called Eryngites that is to say Sea-holly the whole flocke will stand still untill such time as the goat-herd come and take the said herbe out of her mouth Other hidden properties there be which by secret influences and passages from one to another worke strange effects and incredible as well speedily as in longer tract of time and in very truth we woonder more at the intermission and stay of time betweene than we doe of the distance of place and yet there is greater occasion to marvell thereat as namely that a pestilent maladie which began in Aethiopia should raigne in the citie of Athens and fill every street and corner thereof in such sort as Pericles died and Thucydides was sicke thereof than that when the Phocaeans and Sybarits had committed some hainous sins the punishment therefore should fall upon their children go through their posteritie For surely these powers and hidden properties have certaine relations and correspondences from the last to the first the cause whereof although it be unknowen to us yet it ceaseth not secretly to bring foorth her proper effects But there seemeth to be verie apparent reason of justice that publicke vengeance from above should fall upon cities many a yeere after for that a citie is one entire thing and a continued body as it were like unto a living creature which goeth not beside or out of it selfe for any mutations of ages nor in tract and continuance of time changing first into one and then into another by succession but is alwaies uniforme and like it selfe receiving evermore and taking upon it all the thanke for well doing or the blame for misdeeds of whatsoever it doth or hath done in common so long as the societie that linketh holdeth it together maintaineth her unitie for to make many yea innumerable cities of one by dividing it according to space of time were as much as to go about to make of one man many because he is now become old who before was a yong youth in times past also a very stripling or springall or else to speake more properly this resembleth the devises of Epicharmus wherupon was invented that maner of Sophisters arguing which they cal the Croissant argument for thus they reason He that long since borrowed or tooke up mony now oweth it not because he is no more himselfe but become another he that yesterday was invited to a feast cōmeth this day as an unbidden guest cōsidering that he is now another man And verily divers ages make greater difference in ech one of us than they do commonly in cities and States for he that had seene the citie of Athens thirtie yeeres agoe and came to visit it at this day would know it to be altogether the very same that then it was insomuch as the maners customes motions games pastimes serious affaires favours of the people their pleasures displeasures and anger at this present resemble wholly those in ancient time whereas if a man be any long time out of sight hardly his very familiar friend shall be able to know him his countenance will be so much changed and as touching his maners and behaviour which alter and change so soone upon every occasion by reason of all sorts of labour travell accidents and lawes there is such varietie and so great alteration that even he who is ordinarily acquainted and conversant with him would marvell to see the strangenesse and noveltie thereof and yet the man is held and reputed still the same from his nativitie unto his dying day and in like case a citie remaineth alwaies one and the selfe same in which respect we deeme it great reason that it should participate aswell the blame and reproch of ancestours as enjoy their glorie and puissance unlesse we make no care to cast all things in the river of Heraclitus into which by report no one thing entreth twise for that it hath a propertie to alter all things and change their nature Now if it be so that a citie is an united and continued thing in it selfe we are to thinke no lesse of a race and progenie which dependeth upon one and the same stocke producing and bringing foorth a certeine power and communication of qualities and the same doth
to let go the resemblance of an hereditarie vice which beginneth to bud and sprout in a yoong man to stay and suffer it I say to grow on still burgen and spread into all affections untill it appeare in the view of the whole world for as Pindarus saith The foolish heart doth bring forth from within Her hidden fruit corrupt and full of sin And thinke you not that in this point God is wiser than the Poet Hesiodus who admonisheth us and giveth counsell in this wise No children get if thou be newly come From dolefull grave or heavie funerall But spare not when thou art returned home From solemne feast of Gods celestiall as if he would induce men to beget their children when they be jocund fresh and mery for that the generation of them received the impression not of vertue and vice onely but also of joy sadnesse all other qualities howbeit this is not a worke of humane wisdome as Hesiodus supposeth but of God himselfe to discern foreknow perfectly either the conformities or the diversities of mens natures drawen from their progenitors before such time as they breake forth into some great enormities whereby their passions affections be discovered what they are for the yong whelps of beares wolves apes such like creatures shew presently their naturall inclination even whiles they be very yong because it is not disguised or masked with any thing but the nature of man casting it selfe and setling upon maners customes opinions lawes concealeth often times the ill that it hath but doth imitate counterfeit that which is good and honest in such sort as it may be thought either to have done away cleane all the staine blemish imperfection of vices inbred with it or els to have hidden it a long time being covered with the vaile of craft subtiltie so as we are not able or at leastwise have much adoe to perceive their malice by the sting bit pricke of every several vice And to say a truth herein are we mightily deceived that we thinke men are become unjust then only and not before when they do injurie or dissolute when they play some insolent and loose part cowardly minded when they run out of the field as if a man should have the cōceit that the sting in a scorpion was then bred not before when he gave the first pricke or the poison in vipers was ingendred then only when they bit or stung which surely were great simplicitie and meere childishnesse for a wicked person becommeth not then such an one even when he appeareth so and not before but hee hath the rudiments and beginnings of vice and naughtinesse imprinted in himselfe but hee sheweth and useth the same when he hath meanes fit occasion good opportunitie and might answerable to his minde like as the thiefe spieth his time to robbe and the tyrant to violate and breake the lawes But God who is not ignorant of the nature and inclination of every one as who searcheth more into the secrets of the heart and minde than into the body never waiteth and staieth untill violence beperformed by strength of hand impudencie bewraied by malepart speech or intemperance and wantonnesse perpetrated by the naturall members and privie parts ere he punish for he is not revenged of an unrighteous man for any harme and wrong that he hath received by him nor angry with a thiefe or robber for any forcible violence which he hath done unto him ne yet hateth an adulterer because he hath suffered abuse or injurie by his meanes but many times he chastiseth by way of medicine a person that committeth adulterie a covetous wretch and a breaker of the lawes whereby otherwhiles he riddeth them of their vice and preventeth in them as it were the falling sicknesse before the sit surprise them Wee were erewhile offended and displeased that wicked persons were over-late and too slowly punished and now discontented we are complaine for that God doth represse chastise the evill habit and vicious disposition of some before the act committed never considering and knowing that full often a future mischiefe is worse and more to be feared than the present and that which is secret and hidden more dangerous than that which is open and apparent Neither are we able to comprehend and conceive by reason the causes wherefore it is better otherwhiles to tolerate and suffer some persons to be quiet who have offanded and transgressed already and to prevent or stay others before they have executed that which they intend like as in very trueth wee know not the reason why medicines and physicall drogues being not meet for some who are sicke be good and holsome for others though they are not actually diseased yet haply in a more dangerous estate than the former Hereupon it is that the gods turne not upon the children and posterity all the faults of their fathers and ancestours for if it happen that of a bad father there descend a good sonne like as a sickly and crasie man may beget a sound strong and healthfull childe such an one is exempt from the paine and punishment of the whole house and race as being translated out of a vicious familie and adopted into another but that a yoong sonne who shall conforme himselfe to the hereditarie vice of his parents is liable to the punishment of their sinfull life aswell as he his bound to pay their debts by right of succession and inheritance For Antigonus was not punished for the sinnes of his father Demetrius nor to speake of leaud persons Phileus for Augeas ne yet Nestor for Neleus his sake who albeit they were descended from most wicked fathers yet they prooved themselves right honest but all such as whose nature loved embraced and practised that which came unto them by descent and parentage in those I say divine justice is wont to persecute and punish that which resembleth vice and sinne for like as the werts blacke moales spots and freckles of fathers not appearing at all upon their owne childrens skinne begin afterwards to put foorth and shew themselves in their nephews to wit the children of their sonnes and daughters And there was a Grecian woman who having brought foorth a blacke infant and being troubled therefore and judicially accused for adultrie as if shee had beene conceived by a blacke-moore shee pleaded and was found to have beene hereselfe descended from an Aethiopian in the fourth degree remooved As also it is knowen for certaine that of the children of Python the Nisibian who was descended from the race and line of those old Spartans who were the first lords and founders of Thebes the yoongest and he that died not long since had upon his body the print and forme of a speare the very true and naturall marke of that auncient line so long and after the revolution of so many yeeres there sprang and came up againe as it were out of the deepe this resemblance of the stocke
drunkennesse nor as an enemie to wine who directly calleth wine 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and surnameth himselfe 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 thereupon but in mine opinion like as they who love wine if they cannot meet with the liquor of the grape use a counterfet wine or barley broth called beere ale or els a certeine drinke made of apples named cydres or els date-wines even so he that gladly would in winter season weare a chaplet of vine branches seeing it altogether naked and bare of leaves is glad of the Ivie that resembleth it for the body or wood thereof is likewise writhed and crooked and never groweth upright but shutteth out heere and there to and fro at a venture the soft fattie leaves also after the same maner grow dispersed about the branches without all order besides all this the very berries of the Ivie growing thick clustered together like unto greene grapes when they begin to turne doe represent the native forme of the vine and yet albeit the same yeeldeth some helpe and remedie against drunkennesse we say it is by occasion of heat in opening the pores and small passages in the body for to let out the fumes of wine and suffer them to evaporate and breathe forth or rather by her heat helpeth to concoct and digest it that for your sake good Tryphon Bacchus may still continue a physician At these words Tryphon staied a while and made no answere as thinking with himselfe and studying how to reply upon him But Eraton calling earnestly upon every one of us that were of the yoonger sort spurned us forward to aide and assist Tryphon our advocate and the patton of our flower-chaplets or els to plucke them from our heads and weare them no longer And Ammonius assured us for his part that if any one of us would take upon him to answere he would not recharge againe nor come upon him with a rejoinder Then Tryphon himselfe moved us to say somewhat to the question WHereupon I began to speake and said That it belonged not to me but rather unto Tryphon for to proove that Ivie was colde considering that he used it much in physicke to coole and binde as being an astringent medicine but as touching that which ere-while was alledged namely that the Ivie berie doth inebriat if it be steeped in wine it is no found to be true and the accident which it worketh in those who drinke it in that maner can not well be called drunkennesse but rather an alienation of the mind and trouble of the spirit like to that effect which henbane worketh many other plants which mightily disquiet the braine and transport our senses and understanding As for the tortuositie of the bodie and branches it maketh nothing to the purpose and point in hand for the works and effects against nature can not 〈◊〉 from faculties and powers naturall and pieces of wood do twine and bend crooked because fire being neere unto them draweth and drieth up forcibly all the native and kindly humour where as the inward and naturall heat would rather ferment enterteine and augment it But consider better upon the matter and marke rather whether this writhed-bunching forme of the Ivie wood as it groweth and the basenesse bearing still downward and tending to the ground be not an argument rather of weaknesse and bewray the coldnesse of the bodie being glad as it were to make many rests and staies like unto a pilgrim or wayfaring traveller who for wearinesse and faintnesse sitteth him downe and reposeth himselfe many times in his way and ever and anon riseth againe and beginneth to set forward in regard of which feeblenesse the Ivie hath alwaies need of some prop or other to stay it selfe by to take hold of to claspe about and to cling unto being not able of her owne power to rise for want of naturall heat whose nature is to mount aloft As touching Snow that it thaweth and passeth away so soone the cause is the moisture and softnesse of the Ivie leafe for so wee see that water dispatcheth and dissolveth presently the laxitie and spongeous raritie thereof being as it is nothing els but a gathering and heaping of a number of small bubbles couched thrust together and hereof it commeth that in over-moist places sobbed and soaked with water snow melteth assoone as in places exposed to the sun Now for that it hath leaves alwaies upon it and the same as Empedocles saith firme and fast this proceedeth not of heat no more than the fall and shedding of leaves every yeere is occasioned by colde And this appeareth by the myrtle tree and the herbe Adiantum that is to say Maidenhaire which being not hot plants but colde are alwaies leaved and greene withall and therefore some are of opinion that the holding of the leaves is to be ascribed to an equality of temperature but Empedocles over and besides attributeth it to a certeine proportion of the pores thorow which the sap and nourishment doth passe and pierce qually into the leaves in such fort as it runneth sufficiently for to mainteine them which is not so in those trees which lose their leaves by reason of the laxitie or largenesse of the said pores and holes above and the straightnesse of them beneath whereby as these doe not send any nourishment at all so the other can hold and reteine none but that little which they received they let goe all at once like as we may observe in certeine canals or trenches devised for to water gardens and orchards if they be not proportionable and equall for where they be well watred and have continuall nourishment and the same in competent proportion there the trees hold their owne and remaine firme alwaies greene and never die But the Ivie tree planted in Babylon would never grow and refused there to live Certes it was well done of her and she shewed great generositie that being as she was a devoted vassaile to the god of Boeotia and living as it were at his table she would not goe out of her owne countrey to dwell among those Barbarians shee followed not the steps of king Alexander who entred alliance and made his abode with those strange and forren nations but avoided their acquaintance all that ever she could and withstood that transmigration from her native place but the cause thereof was not heat but colde rather because shee could not endure the temperature of the aire so contrary to her owne for that which is semblable and familiar never killeth any thing but receiveth nourisheth and beareth it like as drie ground the herbe thyme how hot soever the soile be Now for the province about Babylon they say the aire in all that tract is so soultrie hot so stuffing so grosse and apt to stifle and stop the breath that many inhabitants of the wealthier sort cause certeine bits or bagges of leather to be filled with water upon which as upon featherbeds they lie to sleepe and coole their
and outragious but milde and gracious And thus we reade of Aeschylus the poet that he endited and wrote his tragedies when he was thorowly set in an heat with wine in such sort as that they all were conceived by the influence of Bacchus and not as Gorgias saith that one of them and namely the greatest intituled The seven princes before Thebes was begotten as it were by Mars For wine being of power to enchafe the bodie and minde both according as Plato saith causeth the bodie to be perspirable quicke and active opening all the pores and passages thereof giving way unto the fantasies and imaginations easily to runne forth drawing out together with them the assurance of reason and boldnesse of speech for you shall have men whose invention naturally is good enough in whom when they be sober and fasting the same is colde timorous and in maner frozen let them once be well plied with wine cup after cup you shall see them evaporate and smoake out like as frankincense doth by the heat of fire Furthermore the nature of wine chaseth away all feare which is as contrarie unto those who sit in consultation as any thing in the world it quencheth also many other base and vile passions such as malice and rancour it openeth the double plates and folds of the minde displaying and discovering the whole disposition and nature of a man by his very words yea it hath a vertue to give franke and liberall speech and consequently audacitie to utter the trueth without which neither experience nor quickenesse of wit availeth ought for many there be who putting in practise and making use of that which commeth quickely into their heads speed better and have greater successe than those who warily cautelously and with much subtiltie seeme to conceale and keepe in that which presenteth it selfe unto them and be very lateward in delivering their opinion we are not therefore to feare wine in this regard that it stirreth up the passions of the minde for inciteth not the worst unlesse it be in the wickeddest men whose counsell is at no time sober but as Theophrastus was woont to call barbars shoppes drie bankets without wine even so there is a kind of winelesse drunkennesse and the same sowre and unpleasant dwelling continually within the mindes of men that be vicious and without good bringing up troubled and vexed alwaies with some anger with grudge malice envie emulation contention or illiberal basenesse of which vices wine abating the edge of a great part rather than sharpning them maketh men not sottish fooles and blockish dolts but ready and apt and yet circumspect cautelous and wary not supine and negligent in matters concerning their profit but yet industrious and making choise of that which is good and honest but such as tearme wily-craftinesse by the name of fine wit and take erroneous opinion and mechanicall nigardise for wisedome may even aswell and with as good reason say that as many as when they be drinking at the table speake their mindes roundly and utter with libertie what they thinke be senselesse fooles but contrariwise our ancients called Bacchus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which is as much to say as Deliverer and Freer being of opinion that there was to be ascribed unto him a great part of divination not for that he was furious raging mad as Euripides said but because he delivereth the minde and freeth it from all servile feare diffidence and cowardise giving us freedome and libertie to speake the trueth and use franknesse of speech one to another THE EIGHTH BOOKE OF SYMPOSIAQUES OR TABLE-DISCOURSES The Summarie 1 OF those daies upon which were borne certeine not able and famous persons and withall as touching that progenie which is said to descend from the gods 2 In what sense Plato said that God alwaies exerciseth Geometrie 3 What is the reason that sounds be more audible in the night than in the day 4 What is the cause that of the sacred games some have this garland and others that but all the date-tree branch as also why the great dates be called Nicolai 5 Wherefore they that saile upon the river Nilus draw up water for their use before it be day 6 Of those that come late to supper and therewith whereupon came these names of refections 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 7 Of certeine Pythagorean precepts by which for bidden we are to enterteine swallowes within our houses and when we are newly risen out of our beds to ruffle the clothes 8 What might be the motive that induced the Pythagoreans among all other living creatures to abstaine most from fish 9 Whether it be possible that by our meats there should be engendred new diseases 10 What is the cause that we take least heed of our dreames in Autumne THE EIGHTH BOOKE OF Symposiaques or table-discourses The Proëme THey that chase philosophie out of feasts and banquets ô Sossius Senecio do not the same but worse farre than those who take away the light from thence for that when the lampe is gone such persons as be made temperate and well disposed will be nothing the woorse therefore making as they doe more account of a reverent regard than of the mutuall sight one of another whereas if rudenesse ignorance and leaudnesse be joined with wine the very golden lampe of Minerva if it were there could not possibly make the feast or banquet lovely gracious modest and well ordered for that men should feed and fill themselves together in silence without a word saying were the fashion that savoured very much of stil swine at their draffe and perhaps a thing impossible but whosoever reserveth speech in a feast and withall admitteth not the wise and profitable use thereof is more worthy to be laughed at than he who thinketh verily that guests should be ever eating and drinking at a supper but not filleth unto them wine undelaied unseasoned and which is meere of it selfe or setteth before them viands unseasoned without salt or sauce and the same not cleanly dressed for that there is no meat or drinke so unsavorie unpleasant and hurtfull for want of good and orderly handling as words carried unseemly and without discretion at a banquet which is the reason that philosophers when they reproove drunkennesse call it a doting by wine and surely this dotage is no other thing but raving or vaine foolish and undiscreet using of words now when disordinate babling and foolish talke meeteth once with wine in a banquet it can not chuse but the issue thereof will be reprochfull contumelie insolencie brainsicke follie and villanie which of all others is a most unpleasant end and farthest from all muses and graces and therefore it is no foolish ceremonie and absurd fashion which the women in our countrey observe at their feasts called Agronia where they make semblance for a while as if they sought for Bacchus being fled out of the way but afterwards give
side it lieth lowest of all things in the world and by occasion thereof resteth unmooveable hauing no cause why it should encline more to one part than to another but yet some places of her because of their raritie do jogge and shake EPICURUS keepeth his old tune saying it may well be that the earth being shogged and as it were rocked and beaten by the aire underneath which is grosse and of the nature of water therefore mooveth and quaketh As also it may be quoth he that being holow and full of holes in the parts below it is forced to tremble and shake by the aire that is gotten within the caves and concavities and there enclosed CHAP. XVI Of the Sea how it was made and commeth to be bitter ANAXIMANDER affirmeth that the Sea is a residue remaining of the primitive humidity whereof the Sunne hauing burnt up and consumed a great part the rest behind he altered and turned from the naturall kind by his excessive ardent heat ANAXAGORAS is of opinion that the said first humiditie being diffused and spred abroad in manner of a poole or great meere was burnt by the motion of the sunne about it and when the oileous substance thereof was exhaled and consumed the rest setled below and turned into a brackish and bitter-saltnesse which is the Sea EMPEDOCLES saith that the Sea is the sweat of the earth enchafed by the sunne being bathed and washed all over aloft ANTISTON thinketh it to be the sweat of heat the moisture whereof which was within being by much seething and boiling sent out becommeth salt a thing ordinary in all sweats METRODORUS supposeth the Sea to be that moisture which running thorough the earth reteined some part of the densitie thereof like as that which passeth through ashes The disciples of PLATO imagine that so much of the elementarie water which is congealed of the aire by refrigeration is sweet and fresh but whatsoever did evaporate by burning and inflammation became salt CHAP. XVII Of the Tides to wit the ebbing and flowing of the sea what is the cause thereof ARISTOTLE and HERACLITUS affirme that it is the sunne which doth it as who stirreth raiseth and carieth about with him the most part of the windes which comming to blow upon the Ocean cause the Atlanticke sea to swell and so make the flux or high water but when the same are allaied and cleane downe the sea falleth low and so causeth a reflux and ebbe or low water PYTHEAS of Marseils referreth the cause of Flowing to the full moone and of Ebbing to the moone in the wane PLATO attributeth all to a certeine rising of the waters saying There is such an elevation that through the mouth of a cave carieth the Ebbe and Flow to and fro by the meanes whereof the seas doe rise and flow contrarily TIMAEUS alledgeth the cause hereof to be the rivers which falling from the mountaines in Gaule enter into the Atlantique sea which by their violent corruptions driving before them the water of the sea cause the Flow and by their ceasing and returne backe by times the Ebbe SELEUCUS the Mathematician who affirmed also that the earth mooved saith that the motion thereof is opposit and contrary to that of the moone also that the winde being driven to and fro by these two contrary revolutions bloweth and beateth upon the Atlanticke ocean troubleth the sea also and no marvell according as it is disquieted it selfe CHAP. XVIII Of the round circle called Halo THis Halo is made after this manner betweene the body of the moone or any other starre and our eie-sight there gathereth a grosse and mistie aire by which aire anon our sight commeth to be reflected and diffused and afterwards the same incurreth upon the said starre according to the exterior circumference thereof and thereupon appeereth a circle round about the starre which being there seene is called Halo for that it seemeth that the apparent impression is close unto that upon which our sight so enlarged as is before said doth fall THE FOURTH BOOKE OF Philosophers opinions The Prooeme HAving runne through the generall parts of the world I will now passe unto the particulars CHAP. I. Of the rising and inundation of Nilus THALES thinketh that the anniversarie windes called Etcsiae blowing directly against Aegypt cause the water of Nilus to swell for that the sea being driven by these windes entreth within the mouth of the said river and hindereth it that it cannot discharge it selfe freely into the sea but is repulsed backward EUTHYMENES of Marseils supposeth that this river is filled with the water of the ocean and the great sea lying without the continent which he imagineth to be fresh and sweet ANAXAGORAS saith that this hapneth by the snowe in Aethiopia which melteth in summer and is congealed and frozen in winter DEMOCRITUS is of opinion that it is long of the snowe in the north parts which about the aestival solstice and returne of the sunne being dissolved and dilated breedeth vapors and of them be engendred clouds which being driven by the Etesian windes into Aethiopia and Aegypt toward the south cause great and violent raines wherewith both lakes and the river also Nilus be filled HERODOTUS the Historian writeth that this river hath as much water from his sources and springs in winter as in summer but to us it seemeth lesse in winter because the sunne being then neerer unto Aegypt causeth the said water to evaporate EPHORUS the Historiographer reporteth that all Aegypt doth resolve and runne at it were wholly into swet in summer time whereunto Arabia and Libya doe conferre and contribute also their waters for that the earth there is light and sandy EUDOXUS saith that the priests of Aegypt assigne the cause hereof to the great raines and the Antiperistasis or contrarie occurse of seasons for that when it is Summer with us who inhabit within the Zone toward the Summer Tropicke it is Winter with those who dwell in the opposit Zone under the Winter Tropicke whereupon saith he proceedeth this great inundation of waters breaking downe unto the river Nilus CHAP. II. Of the Soule THALES was the first that defined the Soule to be a nature moving alwaies or having motion of it selfe PYTHAGORAS saith it is a certeine number moving it selfe and this number he taketh for intelligence or understanding PLATO supposeth it to be an intellectuall substance mooving it selfe and that according to harmonicall number ARISTOTLE is of opinion that it is the first Entelechia or primitive act of a naturall and organicall bodie having life potentially DICEARCHUS thinketh it to be the harmonie and concordance of the foure elements ASCLEPIADES the Physician defineth it to be an exercise in common of all the senses together CHAP. III. Whether the Soule be a body and what is the substance of it ALl these Philsosophers before rehearsed suppose that the Soule is incorporall that of the owne nature it mooveth and is a spirituall substance and the action of a
at the doore but flung over the verie roofe thereof But to what purpose served all this and what good would this have done that he shoud shew himselfe so gentle so affable and humane if he had a curst dog about him to keepe his doore and to affright chase and scarre all those away who had recourse unto him for succour And yet so it is that our ancients reputed not a dog to be altogether a clean creature for first and formost we do not find that he is consecrated or dedicated unto any of the celestial gods but being sent unto terrestrial infernall Proserpina into the quarresires and crosse high waies to make her a supper he seemeth to serve for an expiatorie sacrifice to divert and turne away some calamitie or to cleanse some filthie 〈◊〉 rather than otherwise to say nothing that in Lacedaemon they cut and slit dogs down along the mids and so sacrifice them to Mars the most bloody god of all others And the Romanes themselves upon the feast Lupercalia which they celebrate in the lustrall moneth of Purification called February offer up a dog for a sacrifice and therefore it is no absurditie to thinke that those who have taken upon them to serve the most soveraigne and purest god of all others were not without good cause forbidden to have a dog with them in the house nor to be acquainted and familiar with him 112 For what cause was not the same priest of Jupiter permitted either to touch an ivie tree or to passe thorow a way covered over head with a vine growing to a tree and spreading her branches from it IS not this like unto these precepts of Pythagoras Eat not your meat from a chaire Sit not upon a measure called Choenix Neither step thou over a broome or besoome For surely none of the Pythagoreans feared any of these things or made scruple to doe as these words in outward shew and in their litterall sense do pretend but under such speeches they did covertly and figuratively forbid somewhat else even so this precept Go not under a vine is to be referred unto wine and implieth this much that it is not lawfull for the said Priest to be drunke for such as over drinke themselves have the wine above their heads and under it they are depressed and weighed downe whereas men and priests especially ought to be evermore superiors and commanders of this pleasure and in no wise to be subject unto it And thus much of the vine As for the ivie is it not for that it is a plant that beareth no fruit nor any thing good for mans use and moreover is so weake as by reason of that feeblenesse it is not able to sustaine it selfe but had need of other trees to support and beare it up and besides with the coole shadow that it yeelds and the greene leaves alwaies to be seene it dazeleth and as it were be witcheth the 〈◊〉 of many that looke upon it for which causes men thought that they ought not to nourish or entertaine it about an house because it bringeth no profit nor suffer it to claspe about any thing considering it is so hurtfull unto plants that admit it to creepe upon them whiles it sticketh fast in the ground and therefore banished it is from the temples and sacrifices of the celestiall gods and their priests are debarred from using it neither shall a man ever see in the sacrifices or divine worship of Juno at Athens nor of Venus at Thebes any wilde ivie brought out of the woods Mary at the sacrifices and services of 〈◊〉 which are performed in the night and darknesse it is used Or may not this be a covert and figurative prohibition of such blind dances and fooleries in the night as these be which are practised by the priests of Bacchus for those women which are transported with these furious motions of Bacchus runne immediately upon the ivie and catching it in their hands plucke it in pieces or else chew it betweene their teeth in so much as they speake not altogether absurdly who say that this ivie hath in it a certaine spirit that stirreth and mooveth to madnesse turneth mens mindes to furie driveth them to extasies troubleth and tormenteth them and in one word maketh them drunke without wine and doth great pleasure unto them who are otherwise disposed and enclined of themselves to such fanaticall ravishments of their wit and understanding 113 What is the reason that these Priests and Flamins of Jupiter were not allowed either to take upon them or to sue for any government of State but in regard that they be not capable of such dignities for honour sake and in some sort to make some recompense for that defect they have an usher or verger before them carrying a knitch of rods yea and a curall chaire of estate to 〈◊〉 IS it for the same cause that as in some cities of Greece the sacerdotall dignitie was equivalent to the royall majestie of a king so they would not chuse for their priests meane persons and such as came next to hand Or rather because Priests having their functions determinate and certaine and the kings undeterminate and uncertaine it was not possible that when the occasions and times of both concurred together at one instant one and the same person should be sufficient for both for it could not otherwise be but many times when both charges pressed upon him and urged him at ones he should pretermit the one or the other and by that meanes one while offend and fault in religion toward God and another while do hurt unto citizens and subjects Or else considering that in governments among men they saw that there was otherwhiles no lesse necessitie than authority and that he who is to rule a people as Hippocrates said of a physician who seeth many evill things yea and handleth many also from the harmes of other men reapeth griefe and sorrow of his owne they thought it not in policy good that any one should sacrifice unto the gods or have the charge and superintendence of sacred things who had been either present or president at the judgements and condemnations to death of his owne citizens yea and otherwhiles of his owne kinsfolke and allies like as it befell sometime to Brutus DEMAVNDS AND QUESTIONS AS TOUching Greeke Affaires THAT IS TO SAY A Collection of the maners and of divers customes and fashions of certaine persons and nations of Greece which may serve their turne verie well who reading old Authors are desirous to know the particularities of Antiquitie 1 Who are they that in the citie Epidaurus be called Conipodes and Artyni THere were an hundred and fourescore men who had the managing and whole government of the Common weale out of which number they chose Senatours whom they named Artyni but the most part of the people abode and dwelt in the countrey and such were tearmed Conipodes which is as much to say as Dusty-feet for that when
and understanding the elephants as king Juba writeth shew unto us an evident example for they that hunt them are woont to dig deepe trenches and thatch them over with a thinne cote of light straw or some small brush Now when one of the heard chanceth to fall into a trench for many of them use to go and feed together all the rest bring a mighty deale of stones rammell wood and whatsoever they can get which they fling into the ditch for to fill it up to the end that their fellow may have meanes thereby to get up againe The same writer recordeth also that elephants use to pray unto gods to purifie themselves with the sea water and to adore the sunne rising by lifting up their trunked snout into the aire as if it were their hād all thus of their own accord untaught And to say a truth of all beasts the elephant is most devout religious as K. Ptolemaeus Philopater hath wel testified for after he had defaited Antiochus was minded to render condign thanks unto the gods for so glorious a victorie among many other beasts for sacrifice he slew foure elephants but afterwards being much disquieted and troubled in the night with fearefull dreames and namely that God was wroth and threatned him for such an uncouth and strange sacrifice hee made meanes to appease his ire by many other propitiatorie oblations and among the rest hee dedicated unto him fower elephants of brasse in steed of those which were killed no lesse is the sociable kindnesse and good nature which lions shew one one unto another for the yoonger sort which are more able and nimble of body lead forth with them into the chace for to hunt and prey those that be elder and unweldy who when they be weary sit them downe and rest waiting for the other who being gone forward to hunt if they meet with game and speed then they all set up a roaring note altogether much like unto the bellowing of bulles and thereby call their fellowes to them which the old lions hearing presently runne unto them where they take their part and devour they prey in common To speake of the amatorious affections of brute beasts some are very savage and exceeding furious others more milde and not altogether unlike unto the courting and wooing used betweene man and woman yea I may say to you smelling somewhat of wanton and venerious behaviour and such was the love of an elephant a counter suter or corrivall with Aristophanes the grammarian to a woman in Alexandria that sold chaplets or garlands of flowers neither did the elephant shew lesse affection to her than the man for hee would bring her alwaies out of the fruit market as he passed by some apples peares or other fruit and then he would stay long with her yea and otherwhiles put his snout as it were his hand within her bosome under her partlet and gently feele her soft pappes and white skinne about her faire brest A dragon also there was enamoured upon a yoong maiden of Aetolia it would come to visit her by night creepe along the very bare skinne of her body yea and winde about her without any harme in the world done unto her either willingly or otherwise and then would gently depart from her by the breake of day now when this serpent had continued thus for certeine nights together ordinarily at the last the friends of the yoong damosel remooved her and sent her out of the way a good way off but the dragon for three or fower nights together came not to the house but wandred and sought up and downe heere and there as it should seem for the wench in the end with much adoo having found her out he came and clasped her about not in that milde and gentle maner as before time but after a rougher sort for having with other windings and knots bound her hands and armes fast unto her body with the rest of his taile he flapped and beat her legges shewing a gentle kinde of amorous displeasure and anger yet so as it might seeme he had more affection to pardon than desire to punish her As for the goose in Aegypt which fell in love with a boy and the goat that cast a fansie to Glauce the minstrell wench because they are histories so wel knowen and in every mans mouth for that also I suppose you are wearie already of so many tedious tales and narrations I forbeare to relate them before you but the merles crowes and perroquets or popinjaies which learne to prate and yeeld their voice and breath to them that teach him so pliable so tractable and docible for to forme and expresse a certeine number of letters and syllables as they would have them me thinks they plead sufficiently and are able to defend the cause of all other beasts teaching us as I may say by learning of us that capable they be not onely of the inward discourse of reason but also of the outward gift uttered by distinct words and an articulate voice were it not then a meere ridiculous mockerie to compare these creatures with other dumbe beasts which have not so much voice in them as will serve to houle withall or to expresse a groane and complaint but how great a grace and elegancie there is in the naturall voices and songs of these which they resound of themselves without learning of any masters the best musicians and most sufficient poets that ever were do testifie who compare their sweetest canticles and poems unto their songs of swannes and nightingals now forasmuch as to teach sheweth greater use of reason than to learne wee are to give credit unto Aristotle who saith that brute beasts are endued also with that gift namely that they teach one another for hee writeth that the nightingale hath beene seene to traine up her yoong ones in singing and this experience may serve to testifie on his behalfe that those nightingales sing nothing so well which are taken very yong out of the nest and were not fedde nor brought up by their dammes for those that be nourished by them learne withall of them to sing and that not for money and gaine nor yet for glory but because they take pleasure to sing well and love the elegance above the profit of the voice and to this purpose report I will unto you a storie which I have heard of many as well Greeks as Romans who were present and eie witnesses There was a barber within the city of Rome who kept a shoppe over against the temple called Grecostisis or Forum Graecum and there nourished a pie which would so talke prate and chatte as it was woonderfull counting the speech of men and women the voice of beasts and sound of musicall instruments and that voluntarily of her selfe without the constreint of any person onely she accustomed her selfe so to doe and tooke a certeine pride and glory in it endevouring all that she could to leave nothing
an oracle commanding to plunge and dip Bacchus in the sea And such as dwell farre from the sea insteed of sea water put in baked plaster of Zacynthus IS it to this end that the heat thereof should helpe to resist the colde that it take not away the heart of the wine Or rather cleane contrary doth it not weaken the headinesse of wine by extinguishing the power and strength thereof Or it may be that seeing wine is much subiect to alteration and will quickly turne the terrestriall matter which is cast into it having a naturall property to restraine to binde and to stoppe doth in some sort condensate and stay the waterish and spirituall substance of it Now the salt together with the sea water comming to subtiliate and consume that which is superfluous and naught in the wine and not the proper substance thereof keepeth it so as it will not suffer any strong evill smell or corruption to be ingendred therin Besides all the grosse and terrestriall parts of the wine sticking and cleaving to that which setleth to the bottom and being drawen downward with it maketh a residence of the lees and dregges and by consequence leaveth the rest more cleere pure and neat 11 What is the cause that those who saile upon the sea are more sicke in the stomacke than they that saile upon rivers yea though 〈◊〉 weather be faire and the water calme IS it for that of all the senses smelling and of all passions feare causeth men most to be stomacke sicke for so soone as the apprehension of any perrill seiseth upon a man he trembleth and quaketh for feare his haire stareth and standeth upright yea and his belly groweth to be loose Wheras there is none of all this that troubleth those who saile or row upon the river for why the smell is aquainted with all fresh and potable water neither is the sailing so perillous whereas upon the sea men are offended with strange and unusuall smelles yea and be estsoones affraid how faire soever the season be not trusting upon that which they see present but misdoubting that which may fall out And therefore little or nothing serveth the calme without when the minde within is tossed troubled and vexed partly with feare and in part with distrust drawing the body into the fellowship of like passions and perturbations 12 What is the reason that if the sea be sprinckled aloft with oile there is to be seene a cleere transparence together with a calme and tranquility within WHether is it as Aristotle saith because the winde gliding and glauncing over oile which is smooth and even hath no power to stirre it or to make any agitation Or this reason may well carie with it some probability as touching the outward part and upmost superficies of the sea but seeing that they also by report who plunge and dive to the bottome thereof holding oile within their mouthes if they spurt the same foorth when they are in the bottome have a light all about them and are able to see cleerely in the deepe a man cannot attribute the cause thereof unto the gliding over of the wind See therefore if it may not rather be for that the oile by the solidity and thicknesse that it hath doth drive before it cut and open the sea water first being terrestriall and unequall which after being returned and drawen together againe into it selfe there be left still in the mids betweene certeine little holes which yeeld unto the eies a through-light and transparence Or rather is it for that the aire mingled within the sea is by reason of heat naturally lightsome and perspicuous but when it is troubled and stirred becommeth unequall and shadowy when as the oile therefore by meanes of solidity commeth to pollish and smooth the said inequalitie it resumeth againe the owne plainnesse and perspicuity 13 What is the reason that fisher mens nets doe rot in Winter rather than in Summer notwithstanding that all other things putrifie more in Summer than in Winter IS it because as 〈◊〉 supposeth the heat then beset round about with the circumstant colde giveth place thereto and therefore causeth the bottome of the sea as well as of the earth to be the hotter which is the reason that spring waters be warmer yea and both lakes and rivers doe reike and smoake more in Winter than in Summer because the heat is kept downe and driven to the bottome by the colde which is predominant over it Or rather are we to say that the nets rot not at all but whensoever they be stiffe congealed with colde which drieth them up soone broken afterwards they are with the violence of the waves and so seeme as if they were rotten and putrified indeed for in more danger they are in colde and frosty weather and like as strings and sinewes over-stretched doe breake seeing especially that the sea in Winter most commonly is troubled which is the reason that they use to restreine and thicken them with certeine tinctures for feare they should be overmuch relaxed and resolved for otherwise if it were not for that doubt being not so died and besmeared all over they would sooner deceive fishes because they could not perceive them so soone for that the colour naturally of the lines and threds resembling the aire is very meet to deceive within the sea 14 What is the reason that the 〈◊〉 pray for to have ill inning of their hey IS not this the cause because hey is not well inned wet or having taken a showre for mowen downe it is not dry but while it is greene and full of sappe and if it take wet withall it rotteth incontinently and is marred whereas contrariwise if standing corne be moistened with raine a little before harvest it taketh much good against hot southerne windes which will not suffer the corne to gather and knit in the eare but cause it to be loose that it cannot eare well by meanes of heat were it not by the drenching and watering of the ground the moisture did coole and mollifie the earth 15 What is the reason that a fat strong and heavy clay ground beareth wheat best but contrariwise alight and sandy soile is better for barley MAy not this be a reason that of all corne that which is more strong and solide requireth larger food and the weaker lesse and more slender nourishment now it is well knowen that barley is a more feeble and hollow graine than wheat is in which regard it will not abide and beare plentifull nouriture and strong An argument and testimonie hereof we may have of that kinde of wheat which is called three-moneth wheat for that in drier grounds it liketh better and commeth up in greater plenty the reason is because it is not so firme and solid as others and therefore requireth lesse nutriment in regard whereof also it commeth sooner to ripenesse and perfection 16 How commeth this common prover be Sow wheat in durt and barley in
reason there is that the teares which passe from the one in anger and the other in feare should be such as is aforesaid 21 What is the reason that tame swine do farrow often in one yeere some at one time and some at another whereas the wilde of that kinde bring forth pigs but once in the yeere and all of them in a maner upon the same daies and those are in the beginning of Summer whereupon we say in our vulgar proverbe The night once past of wilde sowes farrowing T' will raine no more be sure for any thing IS it thinke you for the plentie they have of meat as in trueth fulnesse brings wantonnesse and of full feeding comes lust of breeding for abundance of food causeth superfluitie of seed aswell in living creatures as in plants As for the wilde swine they seeke their victuals themselves and that with travell and feare whereas the tame have alwaies store thereof either naturally growing for them or els provided by mans industry Or is the cause of this difference to be attributed unto the idle life of the one and the painfull labour of the other for the domesticall and tame are sluggish and never wander farre from their swineherds but the other range and rove abroad among the forrests and mountaines running to and fro dispatching quickly all the food they can get and spending it every whit upon the substance of their bodies leaving no superfluities expedient for geniture or seed Or may it not be that tame sowes doe keepe company feed and goe in heards together with their bores which provoketh their lust and kindleth the desire to engender according as Empedocles hath written of men in these verses The sight of eie doth kindle lust in brest Of looking liking then loving and the rest Whereas the wilde because they live apart and pasture not together have no such desire and lust one to another for their naturall appetite that way is dulled and quenched Or rather that is true which Aristotle saith namely that Homer calleth a wilde bore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as having but one genetorie for that the most part of them in rubbing themselves against the trunks and stocks of trees doe crush and breake their stones 22 What is the reason of this usuall speech that beares have a most sweet hand and that their flesh is most pleasant to be eaten BEcause those parts of the body which doe best concoct and digest nourishment yeeld their flesh most delicate now that concocteth and digesteth best which stirreth most and doth greatest exercise like as the beare mooveth most this part for his forepawes he useth as feet to goe and runne withall he maketh use also of them as of hands to apprehend and catch any thing 23 What is the cause that in the spring time wilde beasts are hardly hunted by the sent and followed by the trace IS it for that hounds as Empedocles saith By sent of nosthrils when they trace Wilde beast to finde their resting place doe take hold of those vapours and defluxions which the said beasts leave behind them in the wood as they passe but in the spring time these are confounded or utterly extinct by many other smels of plants and shrubs which as then be in their flower and comming upon the aire that the beasts made and intermingled therewith do trouble and deceive the sent of the hounds whereby they are put out and at default that they cannot truly hunt after them by their trace which is the reason men say that upon the mountaine Aetna in Sicilie there is never any hunting with hounds for that all the yeere long there is such abundance of flowers both in hilles and dales growing as it were in a medow or garden whereof the place smelleth all over so sweet that it will not suffer the hounds to catch the sent of the beasts And verily there goeth a tale that Pluto ravished Prosperpina as she was gathering flowers there in which regard the inhabitants honouring the place with great reverence and devotion never put up or hunt the beasts that pasture about that mountaine 24 What is the reason that when the moone is at the full it is very hard for hounds to meet with wilde beasts by the trace or sent of the footing IS it not for the same cause before alledged for that about the full moone there is engendred store of deaw whereupon it is that the poet Aleman calleth deaw the daughter of Jupiter and the moone in these verses Dame Deaw is nourse whom of god Jupiter And lady Moone men call the daughter For the deaw is nothing else but a weake and feeble raine and why because the heat of the moone is but infirme whereof it commeth to passe that she draweth up vapours indeed from the earth as doeth the sunne but not able to fetch them up aloft not there to comprehend them letteth them fall againe 25 What is the cause that in a white or hoarie frost wilde beasts are hardly traced WHether is it for that they being loth for very colde to range farre from their dennes leave not many marks of their footings upon the ground which is the reason that at other times they make spare of that prey which is neere unto them for feare of danger if they should be forced to range farre abroad in Winter and because they would have ready at hand about them at such an hard season to feed upon Or else is it requisit that the place where men doe hunt have not onely the tracts of the beast to be seene but also of force to affect the sent of the hounds and to set their nosthrils a worke but then doe they moove this sense of theirs when as they are gently dissolved and dilated as it were by heat whereas the aire if it be extreme colde congealing as it were the smels will not suffer them to spread and be diffused abroad thereby to move the sense and heereupon it is as folke say that perfumes ointments and wines be lesse fragrant and odoriferous in Winter or in cold weather than at other times for the aire being it selfe bound and shut close doth likewise stay within it all sents and will not suffer them to passe foorth 26 What is the cause that brute beasts so often as they are sicke or feele themselves amisse seeke after divers medicinable meanes for remedie and using the same finde many times helpe as for example dogges when they be stomacke sicke fall to eat a kinde of quitchy grasse because they would cast and vomit choler hogges search for craifishes of the river for by feeding upon them they cure their headach the tortois is likewise having eaten the flesh of a viper eateth upon it the her be origan and the beare when she is full in the stomacke and doth loath all victuals licketh up pismires with her tongue which she no sooner hath swallowed downe but she is warished and yet none of all this were they taught
wing because it lifteth up the soule from things base and mortall unto the consideration of heavenly and celestiall matters 6 How is it that Plato in some places saith the Anteperistasis of motion that is to say the circumstant contrariety debarring a body to moove in regard that there is no voidnesse or vaculty in nature is the cause of those effects which we see in physicians ventoses and cupping glasses of swallowing downe our viands of throwing of 〈◊〉 waights of the course and conveiance of waters of the fall of lightenings of the attraction that amber maketh of the drawing of the lodestone and of the accord and consonance of voices For it seemeth against all reason to yeeld one onely cause for so many effects so divers and so different in kinde First as touching the respiration in living creatures by the anteperistasis of the aire he hath elsewhere sufficiently declared but of the other effects which seeme as he saith to be miracles and woonders in nature and are nothing for that they be nought else but bodies reciprocally and by alternative course driving one another out of place round about and mutually succeeding in their roomes he hath left for to be discussed by us how each of them particularly is done FIrst and formost for ventoses and cupping glasses thus it is The aire that is contained within the ventose stricking as it doth into the flesh being inflamed with heat and being now more fine and subtil than the holes of the brasse box or glasse whereof the ventose is made getteth forth not into a void place for that is impossible but into that other aire which is round about the said ventose without forth and driveth the same from it and that forceth other before it and thus as it were from hand to hand whiles the one giveth place and the other driveth continually and so entreth into the vacant place which the first left it commeth at length to fall upon the flesh which the ventose sticketh fast unto and by heating and inchasing it expresseth the humor that is within into the ventose or cupping vessell The swallowing of our victuals is after the same maner for the cavities as well of the mouth as of the stomacke be alwaies full of aire when as then the meat is driven within the passage or gullet of the throat partly by the tongue and partly by the glandulous parts or kernelles called tonsells and the muscles which now are stretched the aire being pressed and strained by the said meat followeth it hard as it giveth place and sticking close it is a meanes to helpe for to drive it downeward Semblably the waighty things that be flung as bigge stones and such like cut the aire and divide it by reason that they were sent out and levelled with a violent force then the aire all about behind according to the nature thereof which is to follow where a place is lest vacant and to fill it up pursueth the masle or waight aforesaid that is lanced or discharged forcibly and setteth forward the motion thereof The shooting and ejaculation of lightening is much what after the maner of these waights throwen in maner aforesaid for being enflamed and set on a light fire it flasheth out of a cloud by the violence of a stroke into the aire which being once open and broken givith place unto it and then closing up together above it driveth it downe forcibly against the owne nature As for amber we must not thinke that it draweth any thing to it of that which is presented before it no more than doth the lode stone neither that any thing comming nere to the one or the other leapeth thereupon But first as touching the said stone it sendeth from it I wot not what strong and flatuous fluxions by which the aire next adjoining giving backe driveth that which is before it and the same turning round and reentring againe into the void place doth 〈◊〉 from it and withall carry with it the yron to the stone And for amber it hath likewise a certeine flagrant and flatulent spirit which when the out-side thereof is rubbed it putteth forth by reason that the pores thereof are by that meanes opened And verily that which issueth out of it worketh in some measure the like effect that the Magnet or lode-stone did and drawen there are unto it such matters neere at hand as be most light and dry by reason that the substance comming thereof is but slender and weake neither is it selfe strong nor hath sufficient waight and force for to chase and drive before it a great deale of aire by means whereof it might overcome greater things as the lode-stone doth But how is it that this aire driveth and sendeth before it neither wood nor stone but yron onely and so bringeth it to the Magnet This is a doubt and dificulty that much troubleth all those who suppose that this meeting and cleaving of two bodies together is either by the attraction of the stone or by the naturall motion of the yron Yron is neither so hollow and spungeous as is wood nor so fast and close as is gold or stone but it hath small holes passages and rough aspecties which in regard of the unequality are well proportionate and fortable to the aire in such wise as it runneth not easily through but hath certaine staies by the way to catch hold of so as it may stand steady and take such sure footing as to be able to force and drive before it the yron untill it have brought it to kisse the lode-stone And thus much for the causes and reasons that may be rendred of these effects As considering the running of water above ground by what maner of compression and coarctation roud about it should be performed it is not so easy either to be perceived or declared But thus much we are to learne that for waters of lakes which stirre not but continue alwaies in one place it is because the aire spred all about and keeping them in on every side mooveth not nor leaveth unto them any vacant place For even so the upper face of the water as well in lakes as in the sea riseth up into waves and billowes according to the agitation of the aire for the water still followeth the motion of the aire and floweth or is troubled with it by reason of the inequalities For the stroke of the aire downeward maketh the hollow dent of the wave but as the same is driven upward it causeth the swelling and surging tumor of the wave untill such time as all the place above containing the water be setled and laied for then the waves also doe cease and the water likewise is still and quiet But now for the course of waters which glide and run continually above the face of the ground the cause thereof is because they alwaies follow hard after the aire that giveth way and yet are chased by those behinde by compression and driving forward and so
as touching the generation or creation of the world and of the soule thereof as if the same had not bene from all eternity nor had time out of minde their essence whereof we have particularly spoken a part else where and for this present suffice it shall to say by the way that the arguing and contestation which Plato confesseth himselfe to have used with more vehemencie than his age would well beare against Atheists the same I say they confound and shufflle up or to speake more truely abolish altogether For if it be so that the world be eternall and was never created the reason of Plato falleth to the ground namely that the soule being more ancient than the bodie and the cause and principall author of all motion and mutation the chiefe governour also and head Architect as he himselfe hath said is placed and bestowed therein But what and where of the soule is and how it is said and to be understood that it is more ancient than the body and before it in time the progresse of our discourse hereafter shall declare for this point being either unknowen or not well understood brings great difficulty as I thinke in the well conceiving and hinderance in beleeving the opinion of the trueth In the first place therefore I will shew what mine owne conceit is proving and fortifying my sentence and withall mollifying the same because at the first sight it seemeth a strange paradox with as probable reasons as I can devise which done both this interpretation and proofe also of mine I will lay unto the words of the text out of Plato and reconcile the one unto the other For thus in mine opinion stands the case This world quoth Heraclitus there was never any god or man that made as if in so saying he feared that if we disavow God for creatour we must of necessitie confesse that man was the architect and maker thereof But much better it were therefore that we subscribe unto Plato and both say and sing aloud that the world was created by God for as the one is the goodliest piece of worke that ever was made so the other the most excellent workman and greatest cause that is Now the substance and matter whereof it was created was never made or engendred but was for ever time out of minde and from all eternitie subject unto the workman for to dispose and order it yea and to make as like as possible was to himselfe For of nothing and that which had no being there could not possibly be made ought but of that which was notwell made nor as it ought to bee there may be made somewhat that is good to wit an house a garment or an image and statue But before the creation of the world there was nothing but a chaos that is to say all things in confusion and disorder and yet was not the same without a bodie without motion or without soule howbeit that bodie which it had was without forme and consistence and that mooving that it had was altogether rash without reason and understanding which was no other but a disorder of the soule not guided by reason For God created not that bodie which was incorporall nor a soule which was inanimate like as we say that the musician maketh not a voice nor the dancer motion but the one maketh the voice sweet accordant and harmonious and the other the motion to keepe measure time and compasse with a good grace And even so God created not that palpable soliditie of a bodie nor that moving and imaginative puissance of the soule but finding these two principles the one darke and obscure the other turbulent foolish and senselesse both imperfect disordered and indeterminate he so digested and disposed them that he composed of them the most goodly beautifull and absolute living creature that is The substance then of the bodie which is a certeine nature that he calleth susceptible of all things the very seat the nourse also of all things engendred is no other thing than this But as touching the substance of the soule he tearmeth it in his booke entituled Philebus Infinitie that is to say the privation of all number and proportion having in it neither end limit nor measure neither excesse nor defect neither similitude nor dissimilitude And that which hee delivereth in Timaeus namely that it is mingled with the indivisible nature is become divisible in bodies we must not understand this to be either multitude in unities or length and breadth in points or pricks which things agree unto bodies and belong rather to bodies than to soules but that mooving principle disordinate indefinite and mooving of it selfe which hee calleth in manie places Necessitie the same in his books of lawes hee tearmeth directly a disorderly soule wicked and evill doing This is the soule simply and of it selfe it is so called which afterwards was made to participate understanding and discourse of reason yea wife proportion to the end that it might become the soule of the world Semblably this materiall principle capable of all had in it a certeine magnitude distance and place beauty forme proportionate figure and measure it had none but all these it gat afterwards to the end that being thus digested and brought into decent order it might affoord the bodies and organs of the earth the sea the heavens the starres the plants and living creatures of all sorts But as for them who attribute give that which he calleth in Timaeus necessitie and in his treatise Philebus infinity and immensity of excesse defect of too much and too little unto matter and not unto the soule how are they able to maintaine that it is the cause of evill considering that he supposeth alwaies that the said matter is without forme or figure whatsoever destitute of all qualities and faculties proper unto it comparing it unto those oiles which having no smell of their owne perfumers use in the composition of their odors and precious ointments for impossible it is that Plato should suppose the thing which of it selfe is idle without active qualitie without mooving and inclination to any thing to be the cause and beginning of evill or name it an infinity wicked evill doing not likewise a necessitie which in many things repugneth against God as being rebellious and refusing to obey him for as touching that necessitie which overthroweth heaven as he saith in his Politiques and turneth it cleane contrary that inbred concupiscence and confusion of the first and auncient nature wherein there was no order at all before it was ranged to that beautifull disposition of the world as now it is how came it among things if the subject which is matter was without all qualities and void of that efficacie which is in causes and considering that the Creatour himselfe being of his owne nature all good desired as much as might be to make all things like unto himselfe for a third besides these two principles there is
and demonstration thereof It remaineth therefore that it is long either of weakenesse or smalnesse that it is not perceived when they who have it present feele it not nor have any knowledge thereof Moreover it were very absurd to say that the eie sight should perceive and discerne things that be but whitish a little or middle colours betweene and not bee able to see those that be exceeding white in the highest degree or that the sense of feeling should apprehend that which is meanly hot or warme and yet have no sense at all of such things as be excecding hot But there is more absurdity in this that a man should comprehend that which meanly and commonly is according to nature to wit health or the good plight of the body and be ignorant againe of vertue when it is present considering withall that they hold it to be principally and in highest degree accordant to nature for how can it otherwise be but against common sense to conceive well enough the difference betweene health and sicknesse and to be ignorant of that distinction which is betweene wisedome and follie but to thinke the one to be present when it is gone and when a man hath the other not to know so much that he hath it Now forasmuch as after that one advanced and proceeded forward as farre as may be he is changed into felicity and vertue one of these two must of necessitie follow that either this estate of progresse and profit is neither vice nor infelicity or else that there is no great difference and distance betweene vice and vertue but that the diversitie of good things and evill is very small and unperceptible by the sense for otherwise men could not be ignorant when they had the one or the other or thinke they had the one for the other so long then as they depart not from any contrariety of sentences but will allow affirme and put downe all things whatsoever to wit That they who profit and proceed are still fooles and wicked that they who are become wise and good know not so much themselves but are ignorant thereof that there is a great difference betweene wisedome and folly Thinke you that they shew a woonderfull constance and uniformity in the maintenance of their sentences and doctrines Well if in their doctrine they goe against common sense and are repugnant to themselves certes in their life in their negotiations and affaires they doe much more for pronouncing flatly that those who be not wise are all indifferently and alike wicked unjust disloiall faithlesse and foolish and yet forsoorth some of them they abhorre and will not abide but be ready to spit at them others they will not vouchsafe so much as to salute if they meet with them upon the way and some againe they will credit with their monies nominate and elect by their voices to be magistrates yea and bestow their daughters upon them in mariage Now in case they hold such strange and extravagant positions in sport and game let them plucke downe their browes and not make so many surrowes as they doe in their foreheads but if in earnest and as grave Philosophers surely I must needs tell them that it is against common notions to reproove blame and raile upon all men alike in words and yet to use some of them in deeds as honest persons others hardly to intreat as most wicked and for example to admire Chrysippus in the highest degree make a god of him but to mocke and scorne Alexinus although they thinke the men to be fooles alike and not one more or lesse foolish than the other True it is say they and needs it must be so But like as he who is but a cubit under the top of the water is no lesse strangled and drowned than he who lies five hundred fathom deepe in the bottom of the sea even so they that be come within a little of vertue are no lesse in vice still than those who are agreat way off and as blinde folke be blinde still although haply they shall recover their eie-sight shortly after even so they that have wel proceeded and gone forward continue fooles still and sinfull untill such time as they have fully attained to vertue but contrary to all this that they who profit in the schoole of vertue resemble not those who are starke blinde but such rather as see not clerely nor are like unto those who be drowned but unto them that swimme yea and approch neere unto the haven they themselves do beare witnesse by their deeds and in the whole practise of their life for otherwise they would not have used them for their counsellors captaines and lawgivers as blinde men do guides for to lead them by the hands neither would they have praised and imitated their deeds acts sayings and lives of some as they did if they had seene them all drowned alike and suffocated with folly and wickednesse But letting that goe by consider these Stoicks that you may woonder the more at them in this behalfe that by their owne examples they are not taught to quit and abandon these wise men who are ignorant of themselves and who neither know nor perceive that they cease to be stifled and strangled any longer and begin to see the light and being risen aloft and gotten above vice and sinne take their winde and breath againe Also it is against common sense that for a man furnished with all good things and who wanteth nothing of perfect blisse and happinesse it should be meet and befitting to make himselfe away and depart voluntarily out of this life yea and more than so that he who neither presently hath nor ever shall have any good thing but contrariwise is continually haunted and persecuted with all horrible calamities miseries and mishaps that can be should not thinke it fit and covenient for himselfe to leave and for sake this life unlesse some of those things which they hold be indifferent be presented and doe befall unto him Well these be the goodly rules and trim lawes in the Stoicks schoole and verily many of their wise men they cause indeed to go out of this life bearing them in hand that they shall be more blessed and happie although by their saying a wise man is rich fortunate blessed happy every way sure and secured from all danger contrariwise a foole and leawd man is able to say of himselfe Of wteked parts to say I dare be hold So full I am that unneth I can hold And yet forsooth they thinke it meet and seemely for such as these to remaine alive but for those to forgo this life And good cause why quoth Chrysippus for we are not to measure our life by good things or evill but by such as are according to nature See how these Philosophers mainteine ordinary custome and teach according to common notions Say you so good sit ought not he who maketh profession of looking into the estate of life and
substances flow and runne partly by yeelding and sending foorth somewhat out of themselves and in part by receiving other things from without and that by reason of the number and multitude of that which comes in or goes out things continue not one and the same but become altered and divers by the foresaid additions and detractation so as their substance receiveth a change Also that contrary to all right and reason custome hath so farre prevailed that such mutations be called augmentations and diminutions whereas rather they ought to be termed generations and corruptions for that they force an alteration of one present state and being into another but to grow and diminish are passions and accidents of a body and subject that is permanent Which reasons and assertions being after a sort thus delivered in their schooles what is it that these defenders of Perspicuity and Evidence these canonicall reformers I say of common notions would have namely that every one of us should be double like twinnes or of a two-fold nature not as the poets feigned the Molionides to be in some parts 〈◊〉 and united and in other severed and disjoined but two bodies having the same colour the same shape the same weight and place a thing that no man ever saw before mary these Philosophers onely have perceived this duplicity this composition and 〈◊〉 whereby every one of us are two subjects the one being substance the other ** the one of them runneth and floweth continually and yet without augmentation and diminution or remaining in the same state such as it is the other continueth still and yet groweth and decreaseth and yet suffreth all things quite contrary to the other wherewith it is concorporate united and knit leaving to the exteriour sense no shew of distinct difference And yet verily it is said of that 〈◊〉 how in old time hee had so quicke and piereing an eie-sight that he was able to see through stocks and stones And one there was by report who fitting in Sicily could from a watch-tower sensibly discerne the shippes sailing out of the haven of Carthage which was distant a day a nights failing with a good forewind And as for Callicrates and Myrmecides they have the name to have made chariots so smal as that the wings of a fly might cover them yea in a millet graine or sesam seed to have engraven Homers verses But surely this perpetuall fluxion diversity in us there was never any yet that could divide distinguish neither could we our selves ever find that we were double that partly we ranne out continually and in part againe remained alwaies one and the same even from our nativity to our end But I am about to deale with them more simply and plainly for whereas they devise in every one of us foure subjects or to speake more directly make ech of us to be foure it shall suffice to take but two for to shew their absurditie When we doe heare Pentheus in a tragedy saying that he seeth two Sunnes and two cities of Thebes we deeme of him that he seeth not two but that his eies doe dazzell and looke amisse having his discourse troubled and understanding cleane transported And even these persons who suppose and set downe not one city alone but all men all beasts all trees plants tooles vessels utensils and garments to be double and composed of two natures reject wee not and bid farewell as men who would force us not to understand any thing aright but to take every thing wrong Howbeit haply heerein they might be pardoned and winked at for feining and devising other natures of subjects because they have no meanes else for all the paines they take to mainteine and preserve their augmentations But in the soule what they should aile what their meaning might be and upon what grounds and suppositions they devised to frame other different sorts and formes of bodies and those in maner innumerable who is able to say or what may be the cause unlesse they ment to displace or rather to abolish and destroy altogether the common and familiar conceptions inbred in us for to bring in and set up new fangles and other strange and forren novelties For this is woonderfull extravagant and absurd for to make bodies of vertues and vices and besides of sciences arts memories fansies apprehensions passions inclinations and assents and to affirme that these neither lie nor have any place subsisting in any subject but to leave them one little hole like a pricke within the heart wherein they range and draw in the principall part of the soule and the discourse of reason being choked up as it were with such a number of bodies that even they are not able to count a great sort of them who seeme to know best how to distinguish and discerne one from another But to make these not onely bodies but also living creatures and those endued with reason to make I say a swarme of them the same not gentle mild tame but a turbulent sort rable by their malicious shrewdnesse opposit repugnant to al evidence usual custome what wanteth this of absurdity in the highest degree And these men verily do hold that not onely vertues vices be animall and living creatures nor passions alone as anger wrath envy griefe sorrow malice nor apprehensions onely fantasies imaginations and ignorances nor arts and mysteries as the shoomakers smithscraft but also over and besides al these things they make the very operations and actions themselves to be bodies yea and living creatures they would have walking to be an animall dancing likewise shoping saluting and reprochfull railing and so consequently they make laughing weeping to be animall And in granting these they admit also coughing sneesing and groaning yea and withall spitting reaching snitting and snuffing of the nose and such like actions which are as evident as the rest And let them not thinke much and take it grievously if they be driven to this point by way of particular reasonning calling to minde Chrysippus who in his third booke of Naturall questions saith thus What say you of the night is it not a body evening morning midnight are they not bodies Is not the day a body The new moone is it not a bodie the tenth the fifteenth the thirtieth day of the moone the moneth it selfe Summer Autumne and the whole yeere be they not bodies Certes all these things by me named they hold with tooth and naile even against common prenotions But as for these hereafter they maintaine contrary to their owne proper conceptions when as they would produce the hottest thing that is by refrigeration and that which is most subtile by inspissation For the soule is a substance most hot and consisting of most subtill parts which they would make by the refrigeration and condensation of the body which as it were by a certaine perfusion and tincture it hardeneth altereth the spirit from being vegetative to be
us of this 〈◊〉 for there is no man but desireth to know the reason and cause why this oracle hath given over to make answer in verses and other speeches as it hath done Whereto Theon spake thus But now my sonne we may seeme to doe wrong and shamefull injurie unto our discoursers and directours heere these Historians in taking from them that which is their office and therefore let that be done first which belongeth to them and afterwards you may enquire and dispute at leasure of that which you desire Now by this time were we gon 〈◊〉 as farre as to the statue of king Hiero and the stranger albeit he knew well all the rest yet so courtious he was and of so good a nature that he gave eare withall patience to that which was related unto him but having heard that there stood sometime a certaine columne of the said Hiero all of brasse which fell downe of it selfe the very day whereon Hiero died at Saracose in Sicilie he wondred thereat and I thereupon recounted unto him other like examples as namely of Hiero the Spartan how the day before that he lost his life in the battellat Leuctres the eies of his statue fell out of the head also that the two starres which Lysander had dedicated after the navall battell at the river called Aigos-potamos were missing and not to be seene and his very statue of stone put forth of a sodden so much wilde weedes and greene grasse in so great quantity that it covered and hid the face thereof Moreover during the time of those wofull calamities which the Athenians sustained in 〈◊〉 not onely the golden dates of a palme tree sell downe but also the ravens came and pecked with their bils all about the scutcheon or sheeld of the image of Pallas The Cuidians coronet likewise which Philomelus the tyrant of the 〈◊〉 had given unto Pharsalia the fine dauncing wench was the cause of her death for when she had passed out of Greece into Italie one day as she plaied and daunced about the church of Apollo in Metapontine having the said coronet upon her head the yong men of the city came upon her for to have away the gold of that coronet and striving about her one with another who should have it tare the poore woman in peeces among them Aristotle was wont to say that Homer was the onely Poet who made and devised words that had motion so emphatical they were lively expressed but I for my part would say that the offrings dedicated in the city to neat statues jewels other ornaments mooved together with the divine providence do foresignifie future things neither are the same in any part vaine and void of sense but all replenished with a divine power Then Boethus I would not else quoth he for it is not sufficient belike to enclose God once in a moneth within a mortall bodie unlesse we thrust him also into every stone and peece of brasse as if fortune and chance were not sufficient of themselves to worke such feates and accidents What quoth I thinke you then that these things every one have any affinitie with fortune and chance and is it probable that your Atomes doe glide divide and decline neither before nor after but just at the very time as each one of them who made these offrings should fare better or worse And Epicurus belike as farre as I see serveth your turne now and is profitable unto you in those things which he hath said or written three hundred yeares past but this god Apollo unlesse he imprison and immure himselfe as it were and be mixed within every thing is not able in your opinion to give unto any thing in the world the beginning of motion nor the cause of any passion or accident whatsoever And this was the answere which I made unto Boethus for that point and in like maner spake I as touching the verses of Sibylla For when we were come as farre as to the rocke which joineth to the senate house of the city and there rested our selves upon which rocke by report the first Sibylla sat being new come out of Helicon where she had beene fostered by the Muses although others there be that say she arived at Maleon and was the daughter of Lamia who had Neptune for her father Serapion made mention of certaine verses of hers wherein she praised her selfe saying that she should never cease to prophesie and foretell future things no not after her death for that she her selfe should then goe about in the Moone and be that which is called the face therein appearing also that her breath and spirit mingled with the aire should passe to and fro continually in propheticall words and voices of oracles prognosticating and that of her bodie transmuted and converted into earth there should grow herbes shrubs and plants for the food and pasturage of sacred beasts appointed for sacrifices whereby they have all sorts of formes and qualities in their bowels and inwards and by the meanes whereof men may foreknow and foretell of future events Hereat Boethus made semblance to laugh more than before And when Zous alledged that howsoever these seemed to be fabulous matters and meere fables yet so it was that many subversions transmigrations of Greeke cities many expeditions also and voiages made against them of barbarous armies as also the overthrowes destructions of sundry kingdomes and dominious give testimonie in the behalfe of ancient prophesies and praedictions And as for these late and moderne accidents quoth he which hapned at Cumes and Dicaearchia long before chanted and foretolde by way of priophesie out of Sibyls books did not the time ensuing as a debt accomplish and pay the breakings forth and eruptions of fire out of a mountaine the strange ebullitions of the sea the casting up aloft into the aire of stones cinders by subterranean windes under the earth the ruine and devastiation of so many and those so great cities at one time and that so suddenly as they who came but the next morrow thither could not see where they stood or were built the place was so confused These strange events I say and occurrents as they be hardly beleeved to have hapned without the finger of God so much lesse credible it is that foreseene and foretolde they might be without some heavenly power and divinitie Then Boethus And what accident good sir quoth he can there be imagined that Time oweth not unto Nature and what is there so strange prodigious and unexpected aswell in the sea as upon the land either concerning whole cities or particular persons but if a man foretold of them in processe and tract of time the same may fall out accordingly And yet to speake properly this is not soretelling but simply telling or rather to cast forth and scatter at random in that infinity of the aire words having no originall nor foundation which wandering in this wise Fortune otherwhiles encountreth and concurreth with
naked thay had to deale with the Lacedaemonians that were heavily armed at all pieces What honor then or great matter of glory could redound unto the Greeks out of these foure battels in case it be so that the Lacedaemonians encountred naked and unarmed men And for the other Greeks although they were in those parts present yet if they knew not of the combat untill the service was done to their hands and if the tombs honored yeerely by the severall cities belonging to them be emptie and mockeries onely of monuments and sepulchres and if the trevets and altars erected before the gods be full of false titles and inscriptions and Herodotus onely knew the trueth and all men in the world besides who have heard of the Greeks and were quite deceived by the honorable name and opinion that went of them for their singular prowesse and admirable vertue what is their then to be thought or said of Herodotus Surely that he is an excellent writer and depainteth things to the life he is a fine man he hath an eloquent tongue his discourses are full of grace they are pleasant beautifull and artificiall and as it was said of a Poet or Musician in telling his tale how ever he hath pronounced his narration and history not with knowledge and learning yet surely he hath done it elegantly smoothly and with an audible and cleare voice And these I wis be the things that move delight and doe affect all that reade him But like as among roses we must beware of the venimous flies Cantharides even so we ought to take heed of detractions and backebiting of his base penning likewise of things deserving great praise which insinuate themselves and creepe under his smooth stile polished phrase and figurative speeches to the end that ere we be aware we intertaine not nor foster in our heads false conceits and absurd opinions of the bravest men and noblest cities of Greece OF MVSICKE A Dialogue The persons therein discoursing ONESICRATES SOTERICHUS LYSIAS This treatise little or nothing at all concerneth the Musicke of many voices according and interlaced together which is in use and request at this day but rather apperteineth to the ancient fashion which consisteth in the accord and consonance of song with the sense and measure of the letter as also with the good grace of gesture and by the stile and maner of writing it seemeth not to be of Plutarchs doing THe wife of that good man Phocion was wont to say that the jewels and ornaments wherein she joined were those stratagemes and worthy feats of armes which her husband Phocion had atchieved but I for my part may well and truely avouch that the ornaments not onely of my selfe in particular but also of all my friends and kinsfolke in generall is the diligence of my schoolemaster and his affection in teaching me good literature For this we know full well that the noblest exploits and bravest pieces of service performed by great generals and captaines in the field can doe no more but onely save from present perill or imminent danger some small armie or some one citie or haply at the most one entire nation and countrey but are not able to make either their souldiers or citizens or their countreymen better in any respect whereas on the other side good erudition and learning being the very substance indeed of felicitie and the efficient cause of prudence and wisdome is found to be good and profitable not onely to one family city and nation but generally to all mankinde By how much therefore the profit and commodity ensuing upon knowledge and good letters is greater than that which proceedeth from all stratagemes or martiall feats by so much is the remembrance and relation thereof more worthy and commendable Now it fortuned not long since that our gentle friend Onesicrates invited unto a feast in his house the second day of the Saturnall solemnities certeine persons very expert and skilfull in Musicke and among the rest Soterichus of Alexandria and Lysias one of those who received a pension from him and after the ordinary ceremonies and complements of such feasts were performed he began to make a speech unto his company after this maner My good friends quoth he I suppose that it would not beseeme a feast or banquet to search at this time what is the efficient cause of mans voice for a question it is that would require better leasure and more sobrietie but for asmuch as the best Grammarians define voice to be the beating or percussion of the aire perceptible unto the sense of hearing and because that yesterday we enquired and disputed as touching Grammar and found it to be an art making profession and very meet to frame and shape voices according to lines and letters yea and to lay them up in writing as in the treasury and storehouse of memorie let us now see what is the second science next to it that is meet and agreeable to the voice and this I take to be Musicke For a devout and religious thing it is yea and a principall duty belonging unto men for to sing the praises of the gods who have bestowed upon them alone this gift of a distinct and articulate voice which Homer also by his testimonie hath declared in these verses Then all day long the Grecian youth in songs melodious Besought god Phoebus of his grace to be propitious Phoebus I say who from afarre doth shoot his arrowes nie They chaunt and praise who takes great joy to heare such harmony Goe to therefore my masters you that are professed Musicians relate unto this good company here that are your friends who was the first inventour of Musicke what it is that time hath added unto it afterwards who they were that became famous by the exercise and profession of this science as also to how many things and to what is the said study and practrise profitable Thus much as touching that which Onesicrates our master moved and propounded whereupon Lysias inferred againe and said You demand a question good Onesicrates which hath alreadie beene handled and discussed for the most part of the Platonique Philosophers and the best sort of the Peripateticks have emploied themselves in the writing of the ancient Musicke and of the corruption that in time crept into it The best Grammarians also and most cunning Musicians have taken great paines and travelled much in this argument and yet there is no small discord and jarre among them as harmonicall otherwise as they be about these points Heraclides in his Breviarie wherein he hath collected together all the excellent professours of Musicke writeth that Amphion devised first the maner of singing to the Lute or Citherne as also the Citharaedian poësie for being the sonne of Antiope and Jupiter his father taught him that skill And this may be proved true by an olde evidence or record enrolled and diligently kept in the city Sicyone where in he nameth certeine Priestresses in Argos as also Poets
as a Sophister to trie what he can say others aske him concerning treasure hidden some againe would be resolved of succession in heritages and of incestuous and unlawfull marriages Insomuch as now Pythagoras is manifestly convinced of errour and lesing who said that men were then best and excelled in goodnesse when they presented themselves before the gods for such things as it would well beseeme to hide and conceale in the presence onely of some ancient personage I meane the foule maladies and passions of the soule the same they discover and lay abroad naked before Apollo And as he would have gone forward still and prosecuted this theame both Heracleon plucked him by the cloke and I also who of all the company was most familiar inward with him Peace quoth I my good friend Planetiades and cease to provoke Apollo against you for a cholericke and testie god he is and not milde and gracious but according as Pindarus said very well Misdeem'd he is and thought amisse To bee Most kinde to men and full of lenitie And were he either the Sunne or the lord and father of the Sunne or a substance beyond all visible natures it is not like and probable that he would disdaine to speake any more unto men at this day living of whose generation nativity nourishment being and understanding he is the cause and author neither is it credible that the divine providence which is a good kinde and tender mother produceth and preserveth all things for our use should shew herselfe to be malicious in this matter onely of divination and prophesie and upon an old grudge and rankor to bereave us of that which at first she gave us as if forsooth even then when Oracles were rise in all parts of the world there was not in so mightie a multitude of men the greater number of wicked And therefore make Pythicke truce as they say for the while with vice and wickednesse which you are ever woont to chastice and rebuke in all your speeches and come and sit downe heere by us againe that together with us you may search out some other cause of this generall eclipse and cessation of Oracles which now is in question but withall remember that you keepe this god Apollo propitious and moove him not to wrath and displeasure But these words of mine wrought so with Planetiades that without any word replying out of the dores he went his waies Now when the company sat still for a prety while in great silence Ammonius at length directing his speech to me I beseech you quoth he Lamprias take better heed unto that which we doe and looke more neerely into the matter of this our disputation to the end that we cleere not the god altogether and make him to be no cause at all that the Oracles doe cease For he who attributeth this cessation unto any other cause than the will and ordinance of God giveth us occasion to suspect him also that he thinketh they never were not be at this present by his disposition but rather by some other meanes for no other cause and puissance there is more noble more mighty or more excellent which might be able to destroy and abolish divination if it were the worke of God And as touching the discourse that Planetiades made it pleaseth me never a whit neither can I approove thereof as well for other causes as for that he admitteth a certaine inequality and inconstance in the god For one while he maketh him to detest and abhorre vice and another while to allow and accept thereof much like unto some king or tyrant rather who at one gate driveth out wicked persons and receiving them in at another doth negotiate with them But seeing it is so that the greatest worke which can be sufficient in it selfe nothing superfluous but fully accomplished every way is most beseeming the dignity and majesty of the gods let this principle be supposed and laied for a ground and then a man in mine opinion may very well say that of this generall defect and common scarcity of men which civill seditions and warres before time have brought generally into the world Greece hath felt the greatest part insomuch as at this very day hardly is all Greece able to make three thousand men for the warres which are no more in number than one city in times past to wit Megara set forth and sent to the battell of Plataea and therefore whereas the god Apollo in this our age hath left many oracles which in ancient time were much frequented if one should inferre 〈◊〉 and say that this argueth no other thing but that Greece is now much depopulate dispeopled in comparison of that which it was in old time I would like well of his invention and furnish him sufficiently with matter to discourse upon For what would it boot and what good would come of it if there were now an Oracle at Tegyrae as sometime there was or about Ptoum whereas all the day long a man shall paradventure meet with one and that is all keeping and feeding cattell there And verily it is found written in histories that this very place of the Oracle where now we are which of all others in Greece is for antiquity right antient and for reputation most noble and renowmed was in times past for a great while desert and unfrequented nay unaccessable altogether in regard of a most venimous and dangerous beast even a dragon which haunted it But those who write this doe not collect heereupon the cessation of the Oracle aright but argue cleane contrary for it was the solitude and infrequency of the place that brought the dragon thither rather than the dragon that caused the said desert solitarinesse But afterwards when it pleased God that Greece was fortified againe and replenished with many cities and this place well peopled and frequented they used two Prophetesses who one after the other in their course descended into the cave and there sat yea and a third there was besides chosen as a suffragane or assistant to sit by them and helpe if need were but now there is but one Propehtesse in all and yet we complaine not for she onely is sufficient for all commers that have any occasion to use the Oracle And therefore we are in no wise to blame or accuse the god for that divination and spirit of prophesie which remaineth there at this day is sufficient for all and sendeth all suiters away well contented as having their full dispatch and answere for whatsoever they demand Like as therefore Agamemnon in Homer had nine Heraults or Criers about him and yet hardly with them could he containe and keepe in order the assembly of the Greeks being so frequent as then it was but now within these few daies you shall see heere the voice of one man alone able to resound over the whole Theater and to reach unto all the people their contained even so we must thinke that this divination and